Quantitative assessment of the effects of resource optimization and ICU admission policy on COVID-19 mortalities

Zeng, Ying-Qi; Zeng, Lang; Tang, Ming; Liu, Ying; Liu, Zong-Hua; Lai, Ying-Cheng

It is evident that increasing the intensive-care-unit (ICU) capacity and giving priority to admitting and treating younger patients will reduce the number of COVID-19 deaths, but a quantitative assessment of these measures has remained inadequate. We develop a comprehensive, non-Markovian state transition model, which is validated through accurate prediction of the daily death toll for two epicenters: Wuhan, China and Lombardy, Italy. The model enables prediction of COVID-19 deaths in various scenarios. For example, if treatment priorities had been given to younger patients, the death toll in Wuhan and Lombardy would have been reduced by 10.4\% and 6.7\%, respectively. The strategy depends on the epidemic scale and is more effective in countries with a younger population structure. Analyses of data from China, South Korea, Italy, and Spain suggest that countries with less per capita ICU medical resources should implement this strategy in the early stage of the pandemic to reduce mortalities.