A Framework for Estimating Health Spending in Response to COVID-19

By Paolo Dudine, Klaus-Peter Hellwig, Samir Jahan

July 24, 2020

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Paolo Dudine, Klaus-Peter Hellwig, and Samir Jahan. A Framework for Estimating Health Spending in Response to COVID-19, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2020) accessed November 21, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

We estimate the additional health spending necessary to treat COVID-19 patients. We expand a Susceptible Infected Recovered model to project the number of people requiring hospitalization, use information about healthcare costs by country, and make assumptions about capacity constraints in the health sector. Without social distancing and lockdowns, countries would need to expand health systems ten-fold, on average, to assist all COVID-19 patients in need of hospitalization. Under capacity constraints, effective social distancing and quarantine reduce the additional health spending from a range of $0.6–1 trillion globally to $130–231 billion, and the fatality rate from 1.2 to 0.2 percent, on average.

Subject: Capacity utilization, COVID-19, Health, Health care spending, Population and demographics

Keywords: Cost parameter, Fatality rate, Health sector, Health system, Reproduction number, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

43
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2020/145
Stock No:

WPIEA2020145
ISBN:

9781513550220
ISSN:

1018-5941

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