Toward a Country-Based Prediction Model of COVID-19 Infections and Deaths Between Disease Apex and End: Evidence From Countries With Contained Numbers of COVID-19

• Main Authors: Tianshu Gu, Lishi Wang, Ning Xie, Xia Meng, Zhijun Li, Arnold Postlethwaite, Lotfi Aleya, Scott C. Howard, Weikuan Gu, Yongjun Wang
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-06-01
• Series: Frontiers in Medicine
• Subjects: coronavirus; COVID-19; mortality; pandemic; prediction; infectious disease
• Online Access: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmed.2021.585115/full

The complexity of COVID-19 and variations in control measures and containment efforts in different countries have caused difficulties in the prediction and modeling of the COVID-19 pandemic. We attempted to predict the scale of the latter half of the pandemic based on real data using the ratio between the early and latter halves from countries where the pandemic is largely over. We collected daily pandemic data from China, South Korea, and Switzerland and subtracted the ratio of pandemic days before and after the disease apex day of COVID-19. We obtained the ratio of pandemic data and created multiple regression models for the relationship between before and after the apex day. We then tested our models using data from the first wave of the disease from 14 countries in Europe and the US. We then tested the models using data from these countries from the entire pandemic up to March 30, 2021. Results indicate that the actual number of cases from these countries during the first wave mostly fall in the predicted ranges of liniar regression, excepting Spain and Russia. Similarly, the actual deaths in these countries mostly fall into the range of predicted data. Using the accumulated data up to the day of apex and total accumulated data up to March 30, 2021, the data of case numbers in these countries are falling into the range of predicted data, except for data from Brazil. The actual number of deaths in all the countries are at or below the predicted data. In conclusion, a linear regression model built with real data from countries or regions from early pandemics can predict pandemic scales of the countries where the pandemics occur late. Such a prediction with a high degree of accuracy provides valuable information for governments and the public.