We aimed to determine the percentage of COVID-19–associated hospitalizations reported to Los Angeles County (LAC) Public Health that might have been misclassified because of incidentally detected SARS-CoV-2. We retrospectively reviewed medical records from a randomly selected set of hospital discharges reported to LAC Public Health from August to October 2020 for a clinical diagnosis of COVID-19 or a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. Among the 13,813 discharges from 85 hospitals reported to LAC Public Health as COVID-19–associated hospitalizations from August to October 2020, 346 were randomly selected and reviewed. SARS-CoV-2 detection was incidental to the reason for hospitalization in 12% (95% confidence limit, 9%-16%) of COVID-19 classified hospital discharges. Adjusting COVID-19–associated hospitalization rates to account for incidental SARS-CoV-2 detection could help public health policymakers and emergency preparedness personnel improve resource planning.

我们的目的是确定向洛杉矶县 (LAC) 公共卫生部门报告的 COVID-19 相关住院病例的百分比，这些住院病例可能因偶然检测到 SARS-CoV-2 而被错误分类。我们回顾性审查了 2020 年 8 月至 2020 年 10 月期间向 LAC 公共卫生部门报告的一组随机选择的出院医疗记录，以确定 COVID-19 的临床诊断或 SARS-CoV-2 检测结果呈阳性。在 2020 年 8 月至 2020 年 10 月向 LAC 公共卫生部门报告的与 COVID-19 相关的住院治疗的 85 家医院的 13,813 人出院中，随机选择和审查了 346 人。在 COVID-19 分类出院的 12%（95% 置信限，9%-16%）中，SARS-CoV-2 检测与住院原因是偶然的。