Unveiling the underlying severity of múltiple pandèmic indicators

Abstract

Objective: Multiple interconnected key metrics are frequently available to track the pandemic progression and one of the difficulties health planners face is determining which provides the best description of the status of the health challenge. In this study three COVID-19 indicators broadly used to monitor the evolution of the pandemic are analysed: the numbers of daily hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths attributable to the disease. The aim of the paper is to capture the information provided by these magnitudes in a single metric that reveals the underlying severity.

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Conclusions: Our methodology can be used in other infectious diseases to provide policy makers with a single metric that describes the severity status of the disease and enabling them to monitor the evolution. The synthetic indicator may be useful for prioritizing the vaccination of high-risk groups and evaluating the severity reduction