CDC Updated (June 10th) COVID-19 Hospitalization Forecasts

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Normally on Friday morning - at least since mid-April - we've looked at the CDC's COVID-19 Cumulative Deaths Forecasts, which are usually released late on Thursday afternoon.  For reasons that are not immediately apparent, the June 11th update was not posted last night.

While the fluctuating model ensemble and format have made week-to-week comparisons difficult - and deaths have far exceeded those forecast by early runs - these forecasts have been useful for spotting trends.  

Instead, a new forecast of expected hospitalizations was added to the CDC's toolkit last week, and while based on far fewer models, and too `new' to have a much of a track record, it may prove useful for response planning in the weeks and months to come.

For now, this model presents a wide range of scenarios, with nearly a 5-fold difference between the most conservative and most aggressive forecasts.

COVID-19 Forecasts: New Hospitalizations
Updated June 10, 2020

Interpretation of Forecasts of New Hospitalizations

• National forecasts vary considerably for the numbers of new COVID-19 hospitalizations occurring per day and for trends in hospitalizations over the coming weeks. On July 1, the forecasts estimate that there will be between 2,500 and 12,000 new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day in the United States.
• Forecasts estimate the number of new hospitalizations from a variety of data sets of COVID-19 cases or deaths. The use of different data sets, with different limitations—along with the use of different assumptions about social distancing—may result in the high variation between forecasts.

Forecast Assumptions

CDC works with partners to bring together weekly forecasts for new COVID-19 hospitalizations. These forecasts make different assumptions about social distancing measures and use different methods and data sets to estimate the number of new hospitalizations. Individual models are described in more detail below.

Social distancing is incorporated into the forecasts in two different ways:

• The national and state-level forecasts from Columbia University, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), and the Johns Hopkins University Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab (JHU) make assumptions about how levels of social distancing will change in the future.
• The national and state-level forecasts from the US Army Engineer Research and Development Center (ERDC) and the state-level forecast from the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) assume that existing social distancing measures in each state will continue through the projected four-week time period.

The rate of new hospitalizations is estimated using two approaches:

• The forecasts from Columbia University, LANL, ERDC, and JHU assume that a certain fraction of infected people will be hospitalized.
• The IHME forecast estimates hospitalizations based on numbers of forecasted deaths.

• The four national forecasts show the predicted number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day for the next four weeks in the United States.
• As noted above, the forecasts make different assumptions about hospitalization rates and levels of social distancing and other interventions and use different methods to estimate the number of new hospitalizations. See models below for details.

State Forecasts

Five state-level models predicting the number of new hospitalizations were submitted this week. These forecasts show the predicted number of new COVID-19 hospitalizations per day for the next four weeks in each state. Each state forecast uses a different scale, due to differences in the number of new COVID-19 cases occurring per day in each state.

Download state forecasts pdf[7 pages]

Download forecast data 

As always, mathematical models are based on assumptions. And as such, models should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

As for the missing mortality forecast model, hopefully it will be updated soon.