4.3 Hospitalisation Whakaurunga hōhipera
4.3 Hospitalisation | Whakaurunga hōhipera
As multiple variants of COVID-19 swept across the world, health systems had to contend with large spikes in the numbers of people admitted to hospital. There is limited internationally comparable data on hospitalisation. Our main source of data is the Our World in Data collection, which does not include data for New Zealand and some of our comparator countries on this measure. Figure 16 shows the weekly new hospital admissions for COVID-19 for Denmark, Italy, the United Kingdom and the United States for the periods where data are available. (Figure 17 shows similar, but not exactly comparable, data for New Zealand from the Ministry of Health.)
For the countries in Figure 16, hospitalisation for COVID-19 peaked at similar times in 2020. Hospitalisations were highest in the United Kingdom, which peaked at over 400 new admissions per week per million people, followed by the United States, at around 350 admissions.
From 2021, the patterns are quite different. For example, there was a peak in hospitalisation in Italy in March 2021 and one in the United States in August 2021 that the other countries largely avoided. The United States and Denmark saw their largest surges of hospital admissions in early 2022, with numbers almost hitting 500 new admissions per week per million people.
Figure 16: Hospital admissions for COVID-19
Weekly new admissions per million people, Italy, United States, United Kingdom and Denmark, March 2020 to March 2024
Source: Official data collected by Our World in Data, last updated 13 August 2024, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/weekly-hospital-admissions-covid-per-million?country=GBR~USA~ITA~DNK
Notes: Weekly admissions refer to the total number of new admissions over the previous week.
The blue line in Figure 17 shows hospitalisation rates for COVID-19 for New Zealand. New Zealand experienced very few hospital admissions during 2020 and 2021. This changed dramatically in 2022, when hospital admissions hit a peak of over 600 per million. This peak was of a similar order to that experienced by Denmark and the United States around the same time (Figure 16).
Figure 17: Hospital and intensive care unit admissions for COVID-19 in New Zealand
Weekly new hospital and ICU admissions for COVID-19, per million people, 2020–2023
Source: Ministry of Health, New Zealand
Notes: Weekly admissions refer to the cumulative number of new admissions over the previous week.
People who became seriously ill as a result of COVID-19 could sometimes require intensive care, such as artificial ventilation. The orange line in Figure 17 shows the number of weekly new intensive care unit (ICU) admissions for COVID-19 per million people in New Zealand. ICU admissions peaked in early- to mid-2022, but remained at significant levels through 2023.
Other countries record ICU occupancy rates rather than admissions. Figure 18 shows ICU occupancy rates (per million people) for six of our comparator countries. In five of these countries, ICU occupancy rates for COVID-19 peaked in 2020 or 2021. The exception was Australia, which peaked in early 2022, as did New Zealand.
Figure 18: COVID-19 patients in intensive care units
Daily ICU occupancy per million people, 2020–2023
Source: Official data collected by Our World in Data, last updated 13 August 2024, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/covid-icu-patients-per-million?time=earliest..2023-12-31&country=GBR~USA~ITA~JPN~AUS~SWE
Notes: Number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care (ICU), per million people. For countries where the number of ICU patients is not reported, the closest metric is used (patients ventilated or in critical condition)