Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) and COVID-19: Mortality Prediction of COVID-19-Infected Patients with OSA Using Machine Learning Approaches

COVID-19, or coronavirus disease, has caused an ongoing global pandemic causing un-precedented damage in all scopes of life. An infected person with underlaying medical conditions is at greater risk than the rest of the population. Obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is an illness associated with disturbances during sleep or an unconscious state with blockage of the airway passage. The comobordities of OSA with high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity, and age can place the life of an already infected COVID-19 patient into danger. In this paper, a prediction model for the mortality of a COVID-infected patient suffering from OSA is developed using machine learning algorithms. After an extensive methodical search, we designed an artificial neural network that can predict the mortality with an overall accuracy of 99% and a precision of 100% for forecasting the fatality chances of COVID-infected patients. We believe our model can accurately predict the mortality of the patients and can therefore assist medical health workers in predicting and making emergency clinical decisions, especially in a limited resource scenario, based on the medical history of the patients and their future potential risk of death. In this way, patients with a greater risk of mortality can receive timely treatment and benefit from proper ICU resources. Such artificial intelligent application can significantly reduce the overall mortality rate of vulnerable patients with existing medical disorders.