OBJECTIVES: In the fight against the pandemic, it was essential to join forces with professionals to better understand the resources involved in the care ecosystem. A public health impact model was developed to estimate the health and economic burden of COVID-19, to support future choices of resource allocations and to allow comparison with other diseases.

METHODS: A Markov model was used to estimate life years, costs, number of hospitalisations, number of deaths and long/prolonged COVID forms over a time horizon of 2 years. Data from the literature suggest that the age of patients can affect the risk of hospitalisation and the risk of death during hospitalisation, hence the model was stratified by age group. The hospitalisation probabilities were derived from a Temporary Use Authorisation cohort, and the hospitalisation stays characteristics were derived from the French national hospital discharge database. Several scenarios were conducted.

RESULTS: Over the model time horizon and in a situation where patients were not treated, the number of hospitalisations reached 256 per 1,000 patients in the acute phase and 382 per 1,000 patients overall. The number of deaths in the acute phase was 37 per 1,000 patients, and the number of long/prolonged COVID forms reached 407 per 1,000 patients. These translated into a reduction of 0.7 days of life per patient in the acute phase (versus the maximum lifetime during the acute phase: 30.4 days), with an average cost of €1,578, and a reduction of 27 days of life over the time horizon (versus the maximum lifetime during the whole simulation considering natural mortality: 2 years and 15.8 days), with an average cost of €4,280.

CONCLUSIONS: This study shows that the health and economic burden is considerable especially for the elderly and/or unvaccinated and goes beyond the acute phase because of the effects and consequences of the long/prolonged COVID forms.