Study: U.S. Could Face $654B in Coronavirus Direct Care Costs

The estimates could be used as a reference point for policymakers and politicians trying to grapple with the costs of reopening the economy.

The cost of providing healthcare for Americans stricken with COVID-19 could hit $654 billion, depending upon how many people contract the disease, according to a new study in Health Affairs.

Using a "Monte Carlo simulation model" of the U.S. population, researchers from public health schools in New York and California estimate that the direct medical costs for a single, symptomatic COVID-19 infection would be a median of $3,045, incurred only in the course of the infection.  

"At the beginning of each simulation run, we determine what percentage of the population ends up getting infected (i.e., the attack rate) with the age distribution of cases matching the reported age distribution of COVID-19 cases," the researchers wrote. "Each infected person then travels through a probability tree of different possible sequential clinical outcomes."

The researchers estimated that if 80% of the U.S. population was infected, that could result in 44.6 million hospitalizations, 10.7 million ICU admissions, 6.5 million ventilators used, and 249.5 million hospital bed days, at a total direct cost of $654.0 billion during the pandemic.

Using the same formula, if 50% of the U.S. population were infected, there would be 27.9 million hospitalizations, 4.1 million ventilators used and 156.2 million hospital bed days, costing about $408.8 billion.

If 20% of the population became infected, there would be a median of 11.2 million hospitalizations, 62.3 million hospital bed days, and 1.6 million ventilators used, costing $163.4 billion.

The researchers said their estimates could be used as a reference point for policymakers and politicians trying to grapple with the costs of reopening the economy, which could very likely result in more COVID-19 cases.

"Some have suggested herd immunity strategies for this pandemic," said lead author Sarah Bartsch, project director with the Public Health Informatics, Computational, and Operations Research team at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.

"These strategies consist of allowing people to get infected until herd immunity thresholds are reached and the virus can no longer spread. However, our study shows that such strategies could come at a tremendous cost," she said.

The study was a combined effort of the PHICOR, the Infectious Disease Clinical Outcomes Research Unit at the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, Harbor-UCLA Medical Center, and Torrance Memorial Medical Center.