Classification of characteristics.

Characteristics shown in italic font do not exhibit a sufficient predictive power and are therefore not included in our subsequent analysis. We have divided the clinical treatment into four clinical stages to test our neural networks. Stage 1 corresponds to those patients who are in the process of receiving initial medical assessment; therefore, characteristics in categories 1,2, and 3a are assigned. For patients in stage 2, the COVID-19 status and pneumonia characteristics are added to the characteristics vector. When a decision has been made as to whether admit a patient into a hospital or send him/her back home, the hospitalization status characteristic is added at Stage 3. Finally, Stage 4 includes the intubation and ICU characteristics for those patients in critical condition.