Abstract
Coronavirus, the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19), is rapidly spreading around the world. Since the number of corona positive patients is increasing sharply in Iran, this study aimed to forecast the number of newly infected patients in the coming days in Iran. The data used in this study were obtained from daily reports of the Iranian Ministry of Health and the datasets provided by the Johns Hopkins University including the number of new infected cases from February 19, 2020 to March 21, 2020. The autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model was applied to predict the number of patients during the next thirty days. The ARIMA model forecasted an exponential increase in the number of newly detected patients. The result of this study also show that if the spreading pattern continues the same as before, the number of daily new cases would be 3574 by April 20. Since this disease is highly contagious, health politicians need to make decisions to prevent its spread; otherwise, even the most advanced and capable health care systems would face problems for treating all infected patients and a substantial number of deaths will become inevitable.
Highlights
Coronaviruses are a large family of enveloped viruses with single-stranded RNA and a crown on their surface.[1,2] These viruses are severely pathogenic for humans, causing respiratory infection, liver disease, and gastrointestinal and neurological diseases.[3]
The novel coronavirus was reported in December 2019 with the emergence of several cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome in Wuhan city, China.[4,5,6,7,8]
The novel coronavirus was introduced as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) by the World Health Organization, that probably originated from bats.[4]
Summary
Coronaviruses are a large family of enveloped viruses with single-stranded RNA and a crown on their surface.[1,2] These viruses are severely pathogenic for humans, causing respiratory infection, liver disease, and gastrointestinal and neurological diseases.[3]. The novel coronavirus was reported in December 2019 with the emergence of several cases of pneumonia of unknown etiology that caused severe acute respiratory syndrome in Wuhan city, China.[4,5,6,7,8] Some of these cases were seen in people who used seafood in Wuhan.[3,9]. Coronavirus, the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19), is rapidly spreading around the world. Since the number of corona positive patients is increasing sharply in Iran, this study aimed to forecast the number of newly infected patients in the coming days in Iran. Results: The ARIMA model forecasted an exponential increase in the number of newly detected patients. The exponentially increasing rate of patients infected with COVID-19 in Iran.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
