Forecasting daily new infections, deaths and recovery cases due to COVID-19 in Pakistan by using Bayesian Dynamic Linear Models.

Shaukat Ali,Alia Saeed,Firdos Khan,Stefan Cristian Gherghina,Abdul Wali Khan,Ramesh Kumar

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0253367

Abstract

The COVID-19 has caused the deadliest pandemic around the globe, emerged from the city of Wuhan, China by the end of 2019 and affected all continents of the world, with severe health implications and as well as financial-damage. Pakistan is also amongst the top badly effected countries in terms of casualties and financial loss due to COVID-19. By 20th March, 2021, Pakistan reported 623,135 total confirmed cases and 13,799 deaths. A state space model called 'Bayesian Dynamic Linear Model' (BDLM) was used for the forecast of daily new infections, deaths and recover cases regarding COVID-19. For the estimation of states of the models and forecasting new observations, the recursive Kalman filter was used. Twenty days ahead forecast show that the maximum number of new infections are 4,031 per day with 95% prediction interval (3,319-4,743). Death forecast shows that the maximum number of the deaths with 95% prediction interval are 81 and (67-93), respectively. Maximum daily recoveries are 3,464 with 95% prediction interval (2,887-5,423) in the next 20 days. The average number of new infections, deaths and recover cases are 3,282, 52 and 1,840, respectively, in the upcoming 20 days. As the data generation processes based on the latest data has been identified, therefore it can be updated with the availability of new data to provide latest forecast.

Highlights

Various pandemics and contagious viral infections such as influenza, Zika, MERS, Spanish flu, Ebola emerged in the past, which badly affected the human lives and economy of the of the major areas and regions of the world [1, 2]
This study aims to identify the data generating process of three variables, using dynamic linear model (DLM); to provide forecast about above mentioned three variables due to COVID-19 in Pakistan
The model is explained for daily new infections (DNI) only, it can be explained in the same way for daily deaths and recover cases

Summary

Introduction

Various pandemics and contagious viral infections such as influenza, Zika, MERS, Spanish flu, Ebola emerged in the past, which badly affected the human lives and economy of the of the major areas and regions of the world [1, 2]. The world is facing a viral infectious disease caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome corona virus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), initially reported in the Wuhan city of China in December 2019, spreading across all continents of the world and it was named as COVID-19 [3]. With a time span of three months, this virus spread rapidly through enormous ways and reached to most countries of the world [3]. The world came up with different measures to contain the spread of the virus such as limiting the social mobility and lockdown from time to time and reached to the peak of inclined economical losses.

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