Estimating the COVID-19 epidemic trajectory and hospital capacity requirements in South West England: A mathematical modelling framework

  • Ross D. Booton
  • , Louis Macgregor
  • , Lucy Vass
  • , Katharine J. Looker
  • , Catherine Hyams
  • , Philip D. Bright
  • , Irasha Harding
  • , Rajeka Lazarus
  • , Fergus Hamilton
  • , Daniel Lawson
  • , Leon Danon
  • , Adrian Pratt
  • , Richard Wood
  • , Ellen Brooks-Pollock
  • , Katherine M.E. Turner*
  • *Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

24 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Objectives: To develop a regional model of COVID-19 dynamics for use in estimating the number of infections, deaths and required acute and intensive care (IC) beds using the South West England (SW) as an example case. Design: Open-source age-structured variant of a susceptible-exposed-infectious-recovered compartmental mathematical model. Latin hypercube sampling and maximum likelihood estimation were used to calibrate to cumulative cases and cumulative deaths. Setting SW at a time considered early in the pandemic, where National Health Service authorities required evidence to guide localised planning and support decision-making. Participants: Publicly available data on patients with COVID-19. Primary and secondary outcome measures The expected numbers of infected cases, deaths due to COVID-19 infection, patient occupancy of acute and IC beds and the reproduction ('R') number over time. Results: SW model projections indicate that, as of 11 May 2020 (when 'lockdown' measures were eased), 5793 (95% credible interval (CrI) 2003 to 12 051) individuals were still infectious (0.10% of the total SW population, 95% CrI 0.04% to 0.22%), and a total of 189 048 (95% CrI 141 580 to 277 955) had been infected with the virus (either asymptomatically or symptomatically), but recovered, which is 3.4% (95% CrI 2.5% to 5.0%) of the SW population. The total number of patients in acute and IC beds in the SW on 11 May 2020 was predicted to be 701 (95% CrI 169 to 1543) and 110 (95% CrI 8 to 464), respectively. The R value in SW was predicted to be 2.6 (95% CrI 2.0 to 3.2) prior to any interventions, with social distancing reducing this to 2.3 (95% CrI 1.8 to 2.9) and lockdown/school closures further reducing the R value to 0.6 (95% CrI 0.5 to 0.7). Conclusions: The developed model has proved a valuable asset for regional healthcare services. The model will be used further in the SW as the pandemic evolves, and - as open-source software - is portable to healthcare systems in other geographies.

Original languageEnglish
Article numbere041536
JournalBMJ Open
Volume11
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Jan 2021
Externally publishedYes

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2020.

Keywords

  • epidemiology
  • infection control
  • public health

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