On the timing of interventions to preserve hospital capacity: lessons to be learned from the Belgian SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in 2020

Abstract Using publicly available data on the number of new hospitalisations we use a newly developed statistical model to produce a phase portrait to monitor the epidemic allowing for assessing whether or not intervention measures are needed to keep hospital capacity under control. The phase portra...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Christel Faes, Niel Hens, Marius Gilbert
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: BMC 2021-09-01
Series:Archives of Public Health
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1186/s13690-021-00685-2
Description
Summary:Abstract Using publicly available data on the number of new hospitalisations we use a newly developed statistical model to produce a phase portrait to monitor the epidemic allowing for assessing whether or not intervention measures are needed to keep hospital capacity under control. The phase portrait is called a cliquets’ diagram, referring to the discrete alarm phases it points to. Using this cliquets’ diagram we show that intervention measures were associated with an effective mitigation of a Summer resurgence but that too little too late was done to prevent a large autumn wave in Belgium.
ISSN:2049-3258