A synthetic indicator on the impact of COVID-19 on the community’s health

Abstract

The expansion of Covid-19 has severely hit the community’s health all over the world, killing hundreds of thousands of people, subjecting health systems to an enormous stress (besides derailing economic activities and altering personal and social behavior). Two elements are essential to monitor the evolution of the pandemic as well as to analyze the effectiveness of the response measures: reliable data and useful indicators. We present an indicator that helps to assess the impact of Covid-19 on the community’s health, combining two different components: the extent of the pandemics (i.e. the share of the population affected) and its severity (the intensity of the disease on those affected). The severity measure derives from the application of an evaluation protocol that allows comparing population distributions based on the proportions of those affected with different health conditions. We illustrate the functioning of this indicator over a case study regarding the situation of the Italian regions on March 9 (the beginning of the confinement) and April 8, 2020, one month later.