Burden of Disease Methods: A Guide to Calculate COVID-19 Disability-Adjusted Life Years

Methodology The impact of COVID-19 on health occurs through two main pathways: directly, as an infectious disease; and indirectly, as a risk factor, for example, through increases in mental health issues due to national lockdowns or delays to surgery, follow-ups and diagnoses through restrictions to vital healthcare services [6]. The COVID-19 outcomes model is outlined in Figure 1, with detailed information on health states, data input proxies and corresponding disability weights outlined in Table 1. When these cannot be calculated, it is preferred to use estimates of the mean duration of 7.79 days (95% uncertainty interval: 6.20–9.64 days) for lower respiratory tract infections from the GBD study, or to derive them from consultation with within-country clinical expert groups [17]. Additionally, if the granularity of data for community cases permits, the YLD disease model can be refined to include mild cases using a disability weight of 0.006 (95% uncertainty interval: 0.002–0.012) from the upper respiratory tract infections model.