Excess Deaths and Hospital Admissions for COVID-19 Due to a Late Implementation of the Lockdown in Italy.
Int J Environ Res Public Health
; 17(16)2020 08 05.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-696422
ABSTRACT
In Italy, the COVID-19 epidemic curve started to flatten when the health system had already exceeded its capacity, raising concerns that the lockdown was indeed delayed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health effects of late implementation of the lockdown in Italy. Using national data on the daily number of COVID-19 cases, we first estimated the effect of the lockdown, employing an interrupted time series analysis. Second, we evaluated the effect of an early lockdown on the trend of new cases, creating a counterfactual scenario where the intervention was implemented one week in advance. We then predicted the corresponding number of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, non-ICU admissions, and deaths. Finally, we compared results under the actual and counterfactual scenarios. An early implementation of the lockdown would have avoided about 126,000 COVID-19 cases, 54,700 non-ICU admissions, 15,600 ICU admissions, and 12,800 deaths, corresponding to 60% (95%CI 55% to 64%), 52% (95%CI 46% to 57%), 48% (95%CI 42% to 53%), and 44% (95%CI 38% to 50%) reduction, respectively. We found that the late implementation of the lockdown in Italy was responsible for a substantial proportion of hospital admissions and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Quarantine
/
Mortality
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Hospitalization
/
Intensive Care Units
Type of study:
Experimental Studies
/
Observational study
/
Prognostic study
Limits:
Humans
Country/Region as subject:
Europa
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Ijerph17165644
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