Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
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Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. · Apr 2020
Projecting hospital utilization during the COVID-19 outbreaks in the United States.
In the wake of community coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission in the United States, there is a growing public health concern regarding the adequacy of resources to treat infected cases. Hospital beds, intensive care units (ICUs), and ventilators are vital for the treatment of patients with severe illness. To project the timing of the outbreak peak and the number of ICU beds required at peak, we simulated a COVID-19 outbreak parameterized with the US population demographics. ⋯ In this scenario, the proportional impact of self-isolation within 24 h on reducing the peak number of ICU beds is substantially higher at 73.5% (interquartile range 71.4-75.3%). Our estimates underscore the inadequacy of critical care capacity to handle the burgeoning outbreak. Policies that encourage self-isolation, such as paid sick leave, may delay the epidemic peak, giving a window of time that could facilitate emergency mobilization to expand hospital capacity.
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Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. · Apr 2020
The effects of communicating uncertainty on public trust in facts and numbers.
Uncertainty is inherent to our knowledge about the state of the world yet often not communicated alongside scientific facts and numbers. In the "posttruth" era where facts are increasingly contested, a common assumption is that communicating uncertainty will reduce public trust. ⋯ Results show that whereas people do perceive greater uncertainty when it is communicated, we observed only a small decrease in trust in numbers and trustworthiness of the source, and mostly for verbal uncertainty communication. These results could help reassure all communicators of facts and science that they can be more open and transparent about the limits of human knowledge.