COVID-19 can cause healthcare costs to skyrocket as more Americans get sick

The other side of the economic equation: human life and hundreds of billions of dollars in health care costs, as the state demands to reopen its business, claiming too much economic loss under current coronavirus precautions. Can not ignore the parties involved.

Over 20,000 new COVID-19 cases It is still reported daily in the United States, and the coronavirus that causes it is still widespread.

If the US reopens its economy prematurely and the COVID-19 incident surges again, so does medical costs. Someone has to pay those costs. If you own a business, Health insurance Or pay the tax and someone is you.

As more and more people in the population are infected, to better understand what happens to COVID-19 related health care costs in our country, Public health informatics, computational and operational research Team of City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health and Health Policy Developed a computer simulation for the entire United States.

This will allow you to quantify what might occur depending on the progress of the pandemic and the associated direct medical costs and needs of healthcare resources. of Results published In Journal Health Issues.

Building a Sim Nation for COVID-19

Our team develops computer simulation models to help decision makers better understand and address a variety of infectious diseases, including: MRSA, influenza, Zika And Ebola. During the H1N1 influenza pandemic of 2009, Team incorporated into US Department of Health and Human Services Support the national response.

These models recreate all people, processes, resources, and systems involved in a particular health or public problem such as a pandemic, test various possible scenarios, policies, interventions, and calculate expected costs. Function as the world

This latest coronavirus model created a virtual representation of the population across the United States.

Each virtual person could be infected with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Like the real person, the virtual person may have had mild or severe symptoms or no symptoms at all during the course of the infection. Naturally, there are no health costs without symptoms.

How to accumulate medical expenses

When a person develops a symptom, what happens next depends on how severe the symptom became and what the person did eventually.

For example, treating a mildly ill child who simply needs to call a doctor usually costs about US $ 32 (most often in the range of $ 19 to $ 56). Adults in the same situation would cost about $ 17 (most often $ 16 to $ 67). Our model incorporates the variability of costs incurred, so two users can follow exactly the same path, but the costs are still different.

Not surprisingly, the costs increased significantly if there were more severe symptoms requiring hospitalization.

The costs of using medical equipment such as hospital beds, health care workers, drugs, and potentially ventilators will quickly add up, pushing the median cost of people in the hospital to $ 14,366.

Read more: “The worst is yet to come” How COVID-19 cleans up many rural hospitals

Since most COVID-19 patients do not require hospitalization, the median cost of a symptomatic person was found to be $ 3,045 during the course of their infection. But this is still over four times the typical cost Of symptomatic influenza cases About 5.5 times that A case of symptomatic whooping cough. Consider this additional evidence that COVID-19 is It’s definitely not “like the flu.”

The medical costs of coronavirus do not end when the patient is discharged. Patients with severe illness may require follow-up visits to their doctor, including diagnostic imaging such as x-rays and CT scans, laboratory tests, medications, and even hospitalization. For example, a person with severe lung damage may be more susceptible to a subsequent infection.

The resulting medical costs for the first year after the initial infection increase this median cost per patient by 30% to $ 3,994.

This shows that what happens after the first infection cannot be ignored. It’s like getting out of a three-hour movie two hours later.

For some patients, the absence of the virus does not end the pain and medical costs. For example, the person who experiences Lung damage Breathing problems may continue. People who managed to survive sepsis and organ failure Persistent symptoms. Given these persistent issues, COVID-19 Like a chronic condition.

High cost of herd immunity and virus infection

Our findings also shed light on what can happen when an increasing number of people are infected.

When 20% of the US population is infected with COVID-19, approximately 11.2 million people will be hospitalized, of whom the most ill will spend 13 million days on ventilators.

This costs about $ 163.4 billion in direct medical costs. This is before explaining the costs incurred after the infection is over. It also excludes many other health-related costs, such as the cost of doctors, which may vary from doctor to doctor, the cost of public health measures such as extensive testing, and the cost of protecting health care workers and other patients. Hmm.

If half of the population is infected before the vaccine is ready, that number jumps to 27.9 million hospitalizations and 32.6 million ventilator days. Median costs: $ 408.8 billion, increased to $ 516.7 billion, taking into account one-year follow-up medical costs.

It is approaching what is called herd immunity. This is the point at which enough people become immune enough that the disease cannot find a host to spread it. In a coronavirus, it is believed that herd immunity will reach At least 60% The population is naturally infected or vaccinated.

When 80% of the population is infected, the number rises to 44.6 million hospitalizations, 52.2 million ventilator days, and $ 640 billion in direct medical costs. Including the one-year follow-up healthcare costs, the median rises to $ 1.25 trillion.

What all this does is if a country tries to reduce its social distance early or try a “group immunity strategy” that simply infects it and allow the country to infect more people. Is shown. Cost goes well Beyond medical expenses When life is at stake.

Good science and data are needed to make good decisions during this outbreak. After all, not considering the potential associated medical costs is like ignoring most of the field in a football game. And that may be a lost proposition.

This article has been reissued from conversation Under Creative Commons license. Read Original work.