Publications

Publications / SAND Report

Uncertainty analysis of Resource Demand Model for Covid-19

Swiler, Laura P.; Portone, Teresa P.; Beyeler, Walter E.

As part of the Department of Energy response to the novel coronavirus pandemic of 2020, a modeling effort was sponsored by the DOE Office of Science. One task of this modeling effort at Sandia was to develop a model to predict medical resource needs given various patient arrival scenarios. Resources needed include personnel resources (nurses, ICU nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists), fixed resources (regular or ICU beds and ventilators), and consumable resources (masks, gowns, gloves, face shields, sedatives). This report documents the uncertainty analysis that was performed on the resource model. The uncertainty analysis involved sampling 26 input parameters to the model. The sampling was performed conditional on the patient arrival streams that also were inputs to the model. These patient arrival streams were derived from various epidemiology models and had a significant effect on the projected resource needs. In this report, we document the sampling approach, the parameter ranges used, and the computational workflow necessary to perform large-scale uncertainty studies for every county and state in the United States.