New COVID-19 forecast for Ohio: an earlier peak, far fewer deaths

SANDUSKY — A health institute in the state of Washington sharply revised its forecast for Ohio, predicting the COVID-19 outbreak will peak in its effect on hospitals in a couple of days and result in far fewer deaths than an earlier forecast. The new forecast by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington says Ohio's COVID-19 outbreak will peak in its effect on hospital resources on Wednesday, April 8, and will peak in daily deaths on April 12. It forecasts 544 coronavirus deaths by Aug. 4. The new forecast suggests Gov. Mike DeWine's tough measures to enforce social distancing are having an effect. The IHME forecast about a week ago predicted peak hospital use in Ohio on April 20, and forecast 1,672 deaths by Aug. 4. In contrast, the IHME national forecast has hardly changed. About a week ago, it said over the next four months in the U.S. about 81,000 people will die from COVID-19. On Monday, the group's website forecast 81,766 deaths by Aug. 4. But that's better than the group's April 2 forecast of 93,531 deaths. Explaining the change in numbers for its state and national estimates, the IHME says it now has better models and more data. "Thanks to many individuals and organizations, over the past few days we have been able to incorporate a number of different data sources into IHME's COVID-19 model, including state-level data on hospital utilization," the institute said. "Compared with our release on April 2, today's predictions indicate the same peak date for daily COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. — April 16 — but some states have seen shifts to earlier timing of COVID-19 peak deaths." Dr. Amy Acton, director of the Ohio health department, when asked about the new IHME forecast during Tuesday's state press conference in Columbus with Gov. Mike DeWine, said the forecast reflects the fact Ohio's social distancing measures are working. Acton said she believes the IHME forecast is too optimistic and that what's likely to happen in Ohio is somewhere in between the IHME model and a more dire Cleveland Clinic model. She said she'll discuss the dueling models in more detail later this week. She said it's urgent not to let up on social distancing. "We're making a difference, but we cannot let up," she said. "The second we let up, it unravels." The IHME says Ohio will have enough hospital beds and enough ICU beds to cope with the COVID-19 epidemic. The institute says, for example, that Ohio will need 262 ICU beds but will have 1,238 available, with plenty to spare. That's a rosier outlook than Ohio officials have offered as they've worked to ramp up Ohio hospital capacity just in case it's needed. Nationally, though, it forecasts the U.S. will have a bed shortage of 36,654 hospital beds, with an ICU bed shortage of 16,653 beds, more than 16,000 beds short of the 29,210 beds needed nationally. The IHME is now predicting Michigan, harder hit than Ohio, will have 2,963 deaths and an ICU bed shortage of 910 beds.