Acute respiratory infection rates in primary care anticipate ICU bed occupancy during COVID-19 waves.

BACKGROUND: Bed occupancy in the ICU is a major constraint to in-patient care during COVID-19 pandemic. Diagnoses of acute respiratory infection (ARI) by general practitioners have not previously been investigated as an early warning indicator of ICU occupancy. METHODS: A population-based central health care system registry in the autonomous community of Catalonia, Spain, was used to analyze all diagnoses of ARI related to COVID-19 established by general practitioners and the number of occupied ICU beds in all hospitals from Catalonia between March 26, 2020 and January 20, 2021. The primary outcome was the cross-correlation between the series of COVID-19-related ARI cases and ICU bed occupancy taking into account the effect of bank holidays and weekends. Recalculations were later implemented until March 27, 2022. FINDINGS: Weekly average incidence of ARI diagnoses increased from 252.7 per 100,000 in August, 2020 to 496.5 in October, 2020 (294.2 in November, 2020), while the average number of ICU beds occupied by COVID-19-infected patients rose from 1.7 per 100,000 to 3.5 in the same period (6.9 in November, 2020). The incidence of ARI detected in the primary care setting anticipated hospital occupancy of ICUs, with a maximum correlation of 17.3 days in advance (95% confidence interval 15.9 to 18.9). INTERPRETATION: COVID-19-related ARI cases may be a novel warning sign of ICU occupancy with a delay of over two weeks, a latency window period for establishing restrictions on social contacts and mobility to mitigate the propagation of COVID-19. Monitoring ARI cases would enable immediate adoption of measures to prevent ICU saturation in future waves.

Generalized Market Uncertainty Measurement in European Stock Markets in Real Time

We estimate generalized market uncertainty indicators for the stock markets of eight European countries greatly affected by the recent Covid-19 crisis and the economic measures implemented for its containment and mitigation. Our statistics emphasize the difference between risk and uncertainty, in the aggregate, and provide readily and easily interpretable estimates, in real time, which are relevant for market participants and regulators. We show that generalized uncertainty in Europe was, indeed, at historically high levels in the wake of the recent public health crisis before the large interventions by the European Central Bank, the Fed, and the Bank of England, but also that, for some markets, recently recorded uncertainty levels were still lower than those recorded during the Global Financial Crisis, which puts things into perspective. We also show that uncertainty shocks are extremely persistent, but such persistence varies greatly across countries. The period needed for the markets to absorb half of the shock lies between less than a year and two and a half years.