mindstalk | (Reply)

No, I mean I found the Swedish figure on a fairly health-care-as-it-is-now-organized-critical blog with no direct reference to a specific survey, so I take that number as an high estimate which means the American estimate seems even higher to me. I have no reason to believe the CDC is overestimating so I have to wonder if the statistics are based on the same premises and are comparable at all - the US having 3.5 times the death rate from infections on hospitals seem strange. I mean, many old people - and a good deal of otherwise chronically ill people - ultimately die from infections as a final blow, including on hospitals. Pneumonia and urinary tract infections are killers of old people both on and off hospitals, as far as I know (My mother was a geriatrics doctor). And old people who end up in a hospital are already likely sick and weakened, so they are extra vulnerable. The same goes for people having undergone difficult, lengthy treatment of other kinds.

But arguably resistent bacteria is perhaps less of a problem up here than in some other places because of a slightly restrictive policy regarding antibiotics.