Nowcasting (Short-Term Forecasting) of COVID-19 Hospitalizations Using Syndromic Healthcare Data, Sweden, 2020
Journal article, 2022

We report on local nowcasting (short-term forecasting) of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) hospitalizations based on syndromic (symptom) data recorded in regular healthcare routines in Östergötland County (population ≈465,000), Sweden, early in the pandemic, when broad laboratory testing was unavailable. Daily nowcasts were supplied to the local healthcare management based on analyses of the time lag between telenursing calls with the chief complaints (cough by adult or fever by adult) and COVID-19 hospitalization. The complaint cough by adult showed satisfactory performance (Pearson correlation coefficient r>0.80; mean absolute percentage error <20%) in nowcasting the incidence of daily COVID-19 hospitalizations 14 days in advance until the incidence decreased to <1.5/100,000 population, whereas the corresponding performance for fever by adult was unsatisfactory. Our results support local nowcasting of hospitalizations on the basis of symptom data recorded in routine healthcare during the initial stage of a pandemic.

Author

Armin Spreco

Region Östergötland

Linköping University

Anna Jöud

Skåne University Hospital

Lund University

Olle Eriksson

Linköping University

Kristian Soltesz

Lund University

Reidar Källström

Region Östergötland

Linköping University

Örjan Dahlström

Linköping University

Henrik Eriksson

Linköping University

Joakim Ekberg

Linköping University

Region Östergötland

Carl Oscar Jonson

Linköping University

Region Östergötland

Carl Johan Fraenkel

Skåne University Hospital

Torbjörn Lundh

University of Gothenburg

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

Philip Gerlee

Chalmers, Mathematical Sciences, Applied Mathematics and Statistics

University of Gothenburg

Fredrik Gustafsson

Linköping University

Toomas Timpka

Region Östergötland

Linköping University

Emerging Infectious Diseases

1080-6040 (ISSN) 1080-6059 (eISSN)

Vol. 28 3 564-571

Subject Categories

Geriatrics

Health Care Service and Management, Health Policy and Services and Health Economy

Other Health Sciences

DOI

10.3201/eid2803.210267

PubMed

35201737

More information

Latest update

3/14/2022