Global short-term forecasting of COVID-19 cases

Thiago De Paula Oliveira,Rafael De Andrade Moral

doi:10.1038/s41598-021-87230-x

Thiago De Paula Oliveira, Rafael De Andrade Moral

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-87230-x

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Abstract

The continuously growing number of COVID-19 cases pressures healthcare services worldwide. Accurate short-term forecasting is thus vital to support country-level policy making. The strategies adopted by countries to combat the pandemic vary, generating different uncertainty levels about the actual number of cases. Accounting for the hierarchical structure of the data and accommodating extra-variability is therefore fundamental. We introduce a new modelling framework to describe the pandemic’s course with great accuracy and provide short-term daily forecasts for every country in the world. We show that our model generates highly accurate forecasts up to seven days ahead and use estimated model components to cluster countries based on recent events. We introduce statistical novelty in terms of modelling the autoregressive parameter as a function of time, increasing predictive power and flexibility to adapt to each country. Our model can also be used to forecast the number of deaths, study the effects of covariates (such as lockdown policies), and generate forecasts for smaller regions within countries. Consequently, it has substantial implications for global planning and decision making. We present forecasts and make all results freely available to any country in the world through an online Shiny dashboard.

Highlights

The continuously growing number of COVID-19 cases pressures healthcare services worldwide
SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID19, spreads efficiently and[1,3], the effectiveness of control measures depends on the relationship between epidemiological variables, human behaviour, and government intervention to control the spread of the disease[3,4]
Countries have put together task forces to work with COVID-19 data and study the direct and indirect impact on the population, economy, banking and insurance, and financial m arkets[2,10,11,12]

Summary

Introduction

The continuously growing number of COVID-19 cases pressures healthcare services worldwide. Further investment is still needed to foment priority research involving SARS-CoV-2, so as to establish high-level coordination of essential, policy-relevant, social and mental health science[13,14] This pandemic is associated with high basic reproduction numbers[15,16], spreading with great speed since a significant number of infected individuals remain asymptomatic while still being able to transmit the v irus[17]. Policies for reducing the number of infected people, such as social distancing and movement restrictions, have been put in place in many countries, but for many others, a full lockdown may be very difficult (if not impossible) to implement This depends heavily on the country’s political leadership, socio-economic reality, and epidemic stage[1,19]. To aid policy making and Scientific Reports | (2021) 11:7555

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