Predicting clinical needs derived from the COVID-19 pandemic: the case of Spain

Luis Angel Hierro-Recio; Antonio Jose Garzon-Gordon; Pedro Atienza-Montero; Jose Luis Marquez

Clearly, the findings are valid for Spain but not for other countries. However, the method is replicable to any country, state, or region. In addition, it is applicable to any type of health needs, provided we have data on their consumption. It can be applied to anticipate the needs of health staff, hospital beds, medicine, equipment ..., and can also be applied to anticipate other clinical situations apart from deaths. The method does, nevertheless, evidence certain shortcomings that must be taken into account and that basically affect the available data. The method only uses one independent variable, namely those officially declared as being infected, and which thus relies on the possibility of actually applying detection tests. It also depends on health authorities being truthful in their information policy. In Spain, few detection tests were carried out in the early stages of the outbreak, such that patients displaying mild symptoms were not tested. Large-scale testing of mild cases began around 20/03/2020 (https://www.lavozdegalicia.es/noticia/pontevedra/2020/03/20/test-rapidos-salir-cocheinician-hoy-cita-previa/0003_202003P20C1992.htm), although not throughout the whole country. Obviously, if the number of tests for possible COVID-19 infected cases were to be increased, the model would tend to overestimate ICUs and deaths and would need to be recalibrated. In other words, any significant change in the number of tests would affect our independent variable, the number of those declared as being infected, and would have consequences for the predictive performance of both independent variables.