Yale study finds self-isolation would dramatically reduce ICU bed demand

news.yale.edu April 3, 2020

As soon as Alison Galvani learned of the COVID-19 virus in China and its devastating spread there, she foresaw what might happen to healthcare facilities in the United States.

The Yale professor and colleagues at the Center for Infectious Disease Modeling and Analysis (CIDMA) quickly began analyzing various scenarios for COVID-19’s spread in the U.S. — and how self-isolation rates by symptomatic individuals could affect demand for Intensive Care Unit (ICU) beds.

Their findings appear in the current edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and the bottom line is clear: Without dramatic action, there won’t be enough beds for the sickest patients.

If the United States is to avoid the catastrophic scenes in Italy, where patients fill hospital hallways and doctors face agonizing choices over who receives care and who is left to die, even “mildly symptomatic” people must self-isolate to minimize disease transmission, according to the researchers. And expansion of hospital equipment must accelerate.