Abstract
In Afghanistan, the novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is spreading rapidly. Currently, we are in third wave of pandemic, in Afghanistan. And recently government of Afghanistan recorded the highest confirmed cases since the start of pandemic. In order to prepare ourselves and make right decision, we need to predict the future. Past information has been used to predict future, but we need to confess that no prediction can be as real future. The data have been used to predict is from twenty first March 2021 to fifteenth July 2021. The forecasting period is from sixteenth July 2021 for 40 days till twenty fourth August 2021. To examine stationarity of data, we used Augmented Dickey-Fuller unit-root. In this study autoregressive integrated moving average ARIMA model has been used to predict future COVID-19 cases. In order to find the best ARIMA parameters, we used Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC) and Bayesian Information Criteria (BIC). The data which we have used in this study are taken from Ministry of Public Health. We found out that ARIMA (0, 2, 1) is best fit model. By using ARIMA (0, 2, 1), we predicted COVID-19 cases in 80 and 95 per cent level of confidence. In 95 (high) and 80 (high) per cent level of confidence COVID-19 positive cases reach 216,159 and 203,979 cases respectively. On the other hand, in 95 (low) and 80 (low) per cent level of confidence after a period of 40-day positive cases will reach 145,780 and 157,961 cases respectively. This study is the first study which predict COVID-19 cases in Afghanistan, so government of Afghanistan, non-government organizations (NGOs) and scholars can use it to plan and prepare themselves to confront uncertain future and protect people against this virus.
Highlights
IntroductionFirst case of COVID-19 virus found in China on December 2019, and on March of this year WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 pandemic (prevalent over a whole country or the world) (The New York Times, 2021)
First case of COVID-19 virus found in China on December 2019, and on March of this year WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 pandemic (The New York Times, 2021)
Since the first positive case of COVID-19, 188,928,123 cases have been detected till fifteenth July 2021, and 4,066,605 people are died (John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, 2021)
Summary
First case of COVID-19 virus found in China on December 2019, and on March of this year WHO (World Health Organization) declared COVID-19 pandemic (prevalent over a whole country or the world) (The New York Times, 2021). Since the first positive case of COVID-19, 188,928,123 cases have been detected till fifteenth July 2021, and 4,066,605 people are died (John Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Centre, 2021). On 26 June 2021, ministry of public health announced that among 19 samples they took 11 of them were Delta variant of COVID-19 virus and remaining were Alpha variant (Tolo News, 2021). Delta variant of COVID-19 is 40 to 60 per cent more transmissible than the Alpha variant which was 50 percent more transmissible than the initial variant first detected in Wuhan, China (Scientific American, 2021). By rising COVID-19 positive cases, Afghanistan government announced extension of lockdown in capital city Kabul for three weeks (Garda world, 2020) which included a ban on inter-city travel and a reduction of all non-essential services (occurred on 2 May 2020)
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