COVID-19's Impact on US Hospitals: A Look Back and A Peak Forward (Using Tableau)
Channel: Braden Smolko
Date: 2021-03-16

Summary:
The impact of COVID-19 on hospitals across the US is expected to continue declining rapidly. The pandemic has impacted hospitals across the country in three major spikes: the initial spike, the summer spike, and the end of year (2020) spike. Hospitals in the Northeast (New York and New Jersey) were hit the hardest by the pandemic in the early months, driving the initial spike. The summer spike started in the latter part of June 2020 and was driven primarily by cases in the West (Arizona) and the South (Texas, Georgia, and Mississippi). The end of the year spike was Initially driven by cases in the Midwest, but it quickly grew to impact hospitals across the entire country. Coinciding with the vaccine rollout, among other factors, we see the end-of-year spike begin to decline and Tableau’s default forecast predicts that the percent of COVID-19 patients in hospitals is going to continue declining in a rapid fashion. This forecasting model is built from the reported numbers alone, so it does not account for other factors like schools reopening, vaccine hesitancy, or newer strains circulating the globe.

This was created as a part of UMGC's DATA620 course. The dataset (updated regularly) can be found here:

https://healthdata.gov/Hospital/COVID-19-Reported-Patient-Impact-and-Hospital-Capa/g62h-syeh