Predictors of the need for intensive care and mechanical ventilation can help healthcare systems in planning for surge capacity for COVID-19. We used socio-demographic data, clinical data, and blood panel profile data at the time of initial presentation to develop machine learning algorithms for predicting the need for intensive care and mechanical ventilation. Among the algorithms considered, the Random Forest classifier performed the best with AUC = 0.80 for predicting ICU need and AUC = 0.82 for predicting the need for mechanical ventilation. We also determined the most influential features in making this prediction, and concluded that all three categories of data are important. Finally, we determined the relative importance of blood panel profile data and noted that the AUC dropped by 0.12 units when this data was not included, thus indicating that it provided valuable data in predicting disease severity.