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Excess Deaths and Hospital Admissions for COVID-19 Due to a Late Implementation of the Lockdown in Italy

Author

Listed:
  • Raffaele Palladino

    (Department of Primary Care and Public Health, Imperial College, London W6 8RP, UK
    Department of Public Health, University “Federico II” of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy
    CIRMIS—Interdepartmental Center for Research in Healthcare Management and Innovation in Healthcare, University “Federico II” of Naples, 80131 Naples, Italy)

  • Jordy Bollon

    (Department of Translational Medicine, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy)

  • Luca Ragazzoni

    (Department of Translational Medicine, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
    CRIMEDIM—Research Center in Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy)

  • Francesco Barone-Adesi

    (Department of Translational Medicine, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy
    CRIMEDIM—Research Center in Emergency and Disaster Medicine, Università del Piemonte Orientale, 28100 Novara, Italy)

Abstract

In Italy, the COVID-19 epidemic curve started to flatten when the health system had already exceeded its capacity, raising concerns that the lockdown was indeed delayed. The aim of this study was to evaluate the health effects of late implementation of the lockdown in Italy. Using national data on the daily number of COVID-19 cases, we first estimated the effect of the lockdown, employing an interrupted time series analysis. Second, we evaluated the effect of an early lockdown on the trend of new cases, creating a counterfactual scenario where the intervention was implemented one week in advance. We then predicted the corresponding number of intensive care unit (ICU) admissions, non-ICU admissions, and deaths. Finally, we compared results under the actual and counterfactual scenarios. An early implementation of the lockdown would have avoided about 126,000 COVID-19 cases, 54,700 non-ICU admissions, 15,600 ICU admissions, and 12,800 deaths, corresponding to 60% (95%CI: 55% to 64%), 52% (95%CI: 46% to 57%), 48% (95%CI: 42% to 53%), and 44% (95%CI: 38% to 50%) reduction, respectively. We found that the late implementation of the lockdown in Italy was responsible for a substantial proportion of hospital admissions and deaths associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suggested Citation

  • Raffaele Palladino & Jordy Bollon & Luca Ragazzoni & Francesco Barone-Adesi, 2020. "Excess Deaths and Hospital Admissions for COVID-19 Due to a Late Implementation of the Lockdown in Italy," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-6, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:16:p:5644-:d:394865
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Alexandra Horobet & Anca Angela Simionescu & Dan Gabriel Dumitrescu & Lucian Belascu, 2020. "Europe’s War against COVID-19: A Map of Countries’ Disease Vulnerability Using Mortality Indicators," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Yiming Liang & Kankan Wu & Yongjie Zhou & Xin Huang & Yueyue Zhou & Zhengkui Liu, 2020. "Mental Health in Frontline Medical Workers during the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Disease Epidemic in China: A Comparison with the General Population," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(18), pages 1-12, September.

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