The CDC has created a tool to help hospital administrators and public health officials predict a surge in demand for hospital services during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The tool, COVID-19Surge, is spreadsheet-based and lets users produce estimates of the number of COVID-19 patients that need to be hospitalized and require intensive care unit admission and ventilator support. The user can then compare the estimates with the number of beds in the hospital and resources, such as ventilators.
The tool comes prepopulated with numbers and estimates based on published sources, but users can change the values in the tool to represent the situation in their local area or jurisdiction.