Liebe Studierende,
wir freuen uns, folgendes Seminar ankündigen zu können.
Die Zugangsdaten zum Videokonferenzraum erhalten Sie auf Anfrage über: gebert@hlrs.de
Zeitpunkt des Vortrags: Friday, 12th March, 14:30-15:30 CET
Background The COVID-19 pandemic poses the risk of overburdening health care systems, and in particular intensive care units (ICUs). Non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs), ranging from wearing masks to (partial) lockdowns have been implemented as mitigation measures around the globe. However, especially severe NPIs are used with great caution due to their negative effects on the economy, social life and mental well-being. Thus, understanding the impact of the pandemic on ICU demand under alternative scenarios reflecting different levels of NPIs is vital for political decision-making on NPIs. The aim is to support political decision-making by forecasting COVID-19-related ICU demand under alternative scenarios of COVID-19 progression reflecting different levels of NPIs.
Methods In this talk we will present our implementation of a spatial age-structured microsimulation model of the COVID-19 pandemic by extending the Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) framework. The model accounts for regional variation in population age structure and in spatial diffusion pathways. In a first step, we calibrate the model by applying a genetic optimization algorithm against hospital data on ICU patients with COVID-19. In a second step, we forecast COVID-19-related ICU demand under alternative scenarios of COVID 19 progression reflecting different levels of NPIs. The third step is the automation of the procedure for the provision of weekly forecasts. The automated estimation of the model's parameters is done by means of Random-Forest regression.
Results In the results section we will show the application of the model to Germany and demonstrate state-level forecasts over a 2-month period, which can be updated daily based on latest data on the progression of the pandemic.To illustrate the merits of our model, we present here “forecasts” of ICU demand for different stages of the pandemic during 2020 and 2021. Our forecasts for a quiet summer phase with low infection rates identified quite some variation in potential for relaxing NPIs across the federal states. By contrast, our forecasts during a phase of quickly rising infection numbers in autumn (second wave) suggested that all federal states should implement additional NPIs. However, the identified needs for additional NPIs varied again across federal states. In addition, our model suggests that during large infection waves ICU demand would quickly exceed supply, if there were no NPIs in place to contain the virus.
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