Content and Objectives

The BiB is a member of the project consortium Steuerungs-Prognose von intensivmedizinischen COVID-19-Kapazitäten (Control Prognosis of Intensive Care COVID-19 Capacities) (SPoCK) funded by the Federal Ministry of Health and led by the Robert Koch Institute and the Deutsche Interdisziplinären Vereinigung für Intensiv- und Notfallmedizin (DIVI). SPoCK will initially run for 2 years and aims to provide daily updated predictions of COVID-19 patient numbers in intensive care units. Together with the German Aerospace Center (DLR), the BiB is analysing the vulnerability of populations in hospital catchment areas to enable a more accurate estimation of COVID-19 capacities at regional level. This is because in addition to older persons, smokers and people with certain pre-existing conditions are also part of the risk group for a severe course and thus intensive medical treatment of COVID-19. The forecast model takes into account the regional differences in the proportion of these vulnerable population groups in the total population.

The catchment areas of intensive care units cannot be precisely recorded on the basis of administrative units such as municipalities and rural districts. Therefore, SPoCK calculates the catchment areas using an accessibility model independent of administrative units. By intersecting the accessibilities with data on the population structure, the risk groups in the catchment areas of individual hospitals can be determined and used to predict the COVID-19 patients requiring intensive care treatment at the local level. In addition to the elderly population, other risk groups are also precisely located in order to make the risk of severe courses spatially differentiated and quantifiable depending on current new infections. The forecast model also pays special attention to the effects of commuting behaviour on the incidence of infection.