ABSTRACT
A novel compartmental model that includes vaccination strategy, permanence in hospital wards and tracing of infected individuals has been implemented to forecast hospital overload caused by COVID-19 pandemics in Italy. The model parameters were calibrated according to available data on cases, hospital admissions, and number of deaths in Italy during the second wave, and were validated in the timeframe corresponding to the first successive wave where vaccination campaign was fully operational. This model allowed quantifying the decrease of hospital demand in Italy associated with the vaccination campaign. Clinical relevance This study provides evidence for the ability of deterministic SIR-based models to accurately forecast hospital demand dynamics, and support informed decisions regarding dimensioning of hospital personnel and technologies to respond to large-scale epidemics, even when vaccination campaigns are available.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Influenza, Human , COVID-19/epidemiology , COVID-19/prevention & control , Hospitals , Humans , Pandemics/prevention & control , VaccinationABSTRACT
Case-Fatality Rate (CFR) for COVID-19 in Italy is apparently much higher than in other countries. Using data from Italy and other countries we evaluated the role of different determinants of this phenomenon. We found that the Italian testing strategy could explain an important part of the observed difference in CFR. In particular, the majority of patients that are currently tested in Italy have severe clinical symptoms that usually require hospitalization and this translates to a large CFR. We are confident that, once modifications in the testing strategy leading to higher population coverage are consistently adopted in Italy, CFR will realign with the values reported worldwide.
Subject(s)
COVID-19/mortality , COVID-19/epidemiology , Cause of Death/trends , Hospitalization/statistics & numerical data , Humans , Italy/epidemiologyABSTRACT
We evaluated the short-term effects of mitigation measures imposed by the Italian government on the first 10 municipalities affected by Sars-Cov-2 spread. Our results suggest that the effects of containment measures can be appreciated in about approximately 2 wk.