Forecasting COVID-19 impact on the demand for ventilators and beds in US hospital intensive care units by US state over the next 4 months
Dear Collaborators,
IHME, in response to requests by our partners at UW Medicine and subsequent requests from hospital systems and state governments around the US, has developed projections of US hospital resource utilization in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The results show that demand for ventilators and beds in US hospital intensive care units (ICUs) will far exceed capacity for COVID-19 patients as early as the second week of April. The current wave of the pandemic could cause 81,000 US deaths by July, even assuming people strongly adhere to social distancing measures and take other precautions advised by public health officials.
The projections are now available online at covid.healthdata.org/projections, and the publication can be found here. More details on the project can be found at healthdata.org/covid.
The planning tool include estimates for each state, as well as links to download the results. The forecast predicts that 41 states will need more ICU beds than they currently have available and that 11 states may need to increase their ICU beds by 50% or more to meet patient needs before the current wave of the pandemic ends. (The end is defined as fewer than 10 deaths per day nationwide.)
Currently, the US state-by-state data analysis projects demand for hospital services, including the availability of ventilators, beds, and general hospital beds. The analysis is based on an extensive range of information and data sources, including:
- Local governments, national governments, and the World Health Organization
- Government declarations on implementation of social distancing policies
- Data from the American Hospital Association on licensed hospital bed and ICU capacity and average annual utilization of these services by state
- Data on COVID-19-related demand for ICU services in Italy
- Age-specific death rate data from China, Italy, South Korea, and the US
“Our estimated trajectory of COVID-19 deaths assumes continued and uninterrupted vigilance by the general public, hospital and health workers, and government agencies,” said Dr. Christopher Murray. “The trajectory of the pandemic will change – and dramatically for the worse – if people ease up on social distancing or relax with other precautions. We encourage everyone to adhere to those precautions to help save lives.”
Next phase of the research: The tool will be updated regularly so that planning decisions reflect the most accurate real time data and, over the coming days and weeks, we hope to be able to expand this tool to include projections for additional countries.
Thank you for your attention to these findings, we hope that they are useful to you. Should you have any questions or feedback, please do not hesitate to contact us at covid19@healthdata.org and we will reply as soon as possible.
Kind regards,
GBD Secretariat
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