Forecasting the CoViD19 Diffusion in Italy and the Related Occupancy of Intensive Care Units

Livio Fenga

In such an emergency situation, a reliable forecast method for the infection's development is essential for policy and decision makers to design evidence-based policies and to implement fast actions to curb the spread of the infection. In particular, predicting the number of people currently tested positive for CoViD-19 (thereafter "positive cases") could be useful to draw the epidemiological curve of the infection and therefore to predict its peak. Other than for this variable, the forecasting procedure presented in this paper is used to predict the future values of another crucial variable, i.e. the number of people needing hospitalization in a Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The Italian ICUs system is at the moment severely stressed due to the spread of the disease, therefore predictions of future ICUs demand could be fruitfully considered in the design and the implementation of operational schemes. The forecast horizon for both the variables is of 10-day starting from March 29th.