Databases

The COVID-19 pandemic has put every country in the world on high alert. The rapid spread of the pandemic, its consequences on the health system and the strict confinement measures that disrupt economic activities have put at risk the globalized world as we know it. To assess the effects of the pandemic on population health and to try to control the negative economic effects associated with it, tools are needed to monitor its evolution in different territories. To accomplish this, the Ivie has developed three synthetic indicators, known as COVID-19 Severity and Impact Indicators (ISIC-19), that focus on the severe cases and allow to assess the severity and impact of the pandemic and to study its evolution, giving a regional comparison of the situation.

Scope measures the amount of severely affected people over the total population, which can be expressed as a gross index (ratio between the cumulative number of severely affected people and the total population) and as a net index (ratio between the number of severely affected people minus recovered patients and  total population). Severity measures to what degree this part of the population is seriously affected based on the Balanced Worth methodology developed by Herrero and Villar (2013, 2018). The impact index is the result of these two components, scope and severity, which measures how many people are severely affected and to what degree, in relation to the total population.

The methodology used to construct the indicators is detailed on the Ivie website, along with the algorithm developed by Rodrigo Aragón and Héctor García (Ivie) that facilitates the calculation of the Balanced Worth.

This index is based on data provided daily by the Spanish Ministry of Health on the number of deaths, hospitalized and recovered patients, for Spain as a whole and for each of the Spanish regions. The data are from 19 March 2020 onwards.