COVID-19 scenario modelling for the mitigation of capacity-dependent deaths in intensive care: computer simulation study

Richard M Wood; Christopher J McWilliams; Matthew J Thomas; Christopher P Bourdeaux; Christos Vasilakis

Scenarios 3 and 4 model the hospital's actual planned increases in intensive care bed numbers to surge capacities of 76 and 100 respectively. Scenario 5 models the potential benefits of reducing COVID-19 length of stay (for example by using digital interventions to optimise clinical practice and workflows e.g. Bourdeaux et al 2016 , McWilliams et al 2019 by considering a one-quarter reduction in mean length of stay. There may be scope for government-led strategies to further restrict movement and thus the rate at which infections are acquired in the population. Scenarios 6 and 7 model such an eventuality by stretching the epidemic curve for cases requiring intensive care (under the Isolation strategy) by 50% (i.e. the same demand and shape, just spread over a 50% longer time period). The final scenario involves . CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license It is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.