News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, ... by ajsnigrutin on Friday October 16, 2020 @08:26PM (#24806385)
> five days difference in hospital stay that was implied costs a lot more than that

In case of COVID, it's not just a cost issue, but also clearing the bed as soon as possible, to put a new patient in.

10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help.

Re:Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, ... by mlyle on Friday October 16, 2020 @09:24PM (#24806723)
Read the whole comment. I said:

> ... and that's ignoring that we were worried about running out of hospital capacity.

Anyways--

> 10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help.

This isn't true. It's only true at steady state, but if there's an exponential process you get a smaller benefit. (E.g. take the ridiculous case that 100% of patients show up on one day-- obviously a shorter stay doesn't improve the number you treat in that case).

Re:Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, ... by ajsnigrutin on Sunday October 18, 2020 @11:49PM (#24823167)
We're talking about a real virus here, not a theoretical experiment in math. Currently, most of europe is having an exponential growth of new cases, so even if 100% of current cases show up on day one, we'll have more new cases tomorrow, and any way to speed up the process will save lives.
Re:Covid: Remdesivir 'has little or no effect' on survival, ... by mlyle on Monday October 19, 2020 @02:11AM (#24823715)
Yes, shortening the process saves lives. I don't disagree with that.

It's just worth noting that you get significantly less than a 1/.9 benefit in capacity when you shorten hospitalization times by 10%. It's a benefit, but it's only this ideal value when things are perfectly steady state. So sorry for the pedantry, but "10% less hospital stay, means 10% more patients able to get help."--- it's not the predicted 11% or even 10%.