An statistical analysis of COVID-19 intensive care unit bed occupancy data

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences, highlighting the urgency for explanatory and predictive tools to track infection rates and burden of care over time and space. However, the scarcity and inhomogeneity of data is a challenge. In this research we develop a robust framework for estimating and predicting the occupied beds of Intensive Care Units by presenting an innovative Small Area Estimation methodology based on the definition of mixed models with random regression coefficients. We applied it to estimate and predict the daily occupancy of Intensive Care Unit beds by COVID-19 in health areas of Castilla y Le\'on, from November 2020 to March 2022.