Period: April – December 2020

Team: Prof. Dr. Adolfo Rubinstein (PI), Prof. Dr. Andres Pichon-Riviere (co PI), Prof. Dr. Federico Augustovski, Dr. Alejandro Lopez, Lic. Martin Wachs, Lic. Adrian Santono, Lic. Ivan Williams, Dra. Analía López, Lic. Cintia Cejas, Lic. Maissa Havela, Dr. Ariel Bardach

Objective:

Estimate the impact of the expansion of COVID19 on the level of preparedness of the health systems of different Latin American and the Caribbean countries. 

Summary:

This project had the objective to estimate the impact of the expansion of COVID‐19 on the level of preparedness of the health systems of different countries in the region. The project included the compilation of key indicators of health system preparedness based on peer‐review scientific journals and grey literature publications, complemented with inputs from government and health officials, as well as experts from the fields of infectious diseases epidemiology, intensive care, and hospital management, to assess the potential impact of COVID‐19 epidemics on these key variables. 

The epidemiological forecast focused on the healthcare system impact came from an epidemiological model developed ad‐hoc for this project that took into account the key parameters of the health system at the national or sub‐national level, such as the number of hospital and intensive care unit (ICU) beds, ventilators, multiparametric monitors, hospital and ICU workforce, occupancy rate, case length of stay at ICU, etc. 

The model provided the expected daily number of cases for each country’s situation as well as different possible scenarios‐measures that impact in the evolution of the epidemic, such as ‘do nothing’, social distancing and other mitigation measures, and suppression and lockdown interventions that were taken by different countries. Also, the model allowed to calculate the daily estimation of cases and deaths related to COVID-19 in each possible scenario, and its relation to other epidemiological variables and the available resources of each health system.

The model is available at: https://www.iecs.org.ar/modelocovid/ 

Supported by: Interamerican Development Bank (IBD)