COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide socioeconomic unrest, forcing governments to introduce extreme measures to reduce its spread. Being able to accurately forecast when the outbreak will hit its peak would significantly diminish the impact of the disease, as it would allow governments...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Vasilis Papastefanopoulos, Pantelis Linardatos, Sotiris Kotsiantis
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2020-06-01
Series:Applied Sciences
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/11/3880
_version_ 1797566202990559232
author Vasilis Papastefanopoulos
Pantelis Linardatos
Sotiris Kotsiantis
author_facet Vasilis Papastefanopoulos
Pantelis Linardatos
Sotiris Kotsiantis
author_sort Vasilis Papastefanopoulos
collection DOAJ
description The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide socioeconomic unrest, forcing governments to introduce extreme measures to reduce its spread. Being able to accurately forecast when the outbreak will hit its peak would significantly diminish the impact of the disease, as it would allow governments to alter their policy accordingly and plan ahead for the preventive steps needed such as public health messaging, raising awareness of citizens and increasing the capacity of the health system. This study investigated the accuracy of a variety of time series modeling approaches for coronavirus outbreak detection in ten different countries with the highest number of confirmed cases as of 4 May 2020. For each of these countries, six different time series approaches were developed and compared using two publicly available datasets regarding the progression of the virus in each country and the population of each country, respectively. The results demonstrate that, given data produced using actual testing for a small portion of the population, machine learning time series methods can learn and scale to accurately estimate the percentage of the total population that will become affected in the future.
first_indexed 2024-03-10T19:24:19Z
format Article
id doaj.art-f2cc9eafed1441b5a55722236f167b69
institution Directory Open Access Journal
issn 2076-3417
language English
last_indexed 2024-03-10T19:24:19Z
publishDate 2020-06-01
publisher MDPI AG
record_format Article
series Applied Sciences
spelling doaj.art-f2cc9eafed1441b5a55722236f167b692023-11-20T02:46:31ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172020-06-011011388010.3390/app10113880COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per PopulationVasilis Papastefanopoulos0Pantelis Linardatos1Sotiris Kotsiantis2Department of Mathematics, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, GreeceDepartment of Mathematics, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, GreeceDepartment of Mathematics, University of Patras, 26504 Patras, GreeceThe ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has caused worldwide socioeconomic unrest, forcing governments to introduce extreme measures to reduce its spread. Being able to accurately forecast when the outbreak will hit its peak would significantly diminish the impact of the disease, as it would allow governments to alter their policy accordingly and plan ahead for the preventive steps needed such as public health messaging, raising awareness of citizens and increasing the capacity of the health system. This study investigated the accuracy of a variety of time series modeling approaches for coronavirus outbreak detection in ten different countries with the highest number of confirmed cases as of 4 May 2020. For each of these countries, six different time series approaches were developed and compared using two publicly available datasets regarding the progression of the virus in each country and the population of each country, respectively. The results demonstrate that, given data produced using actual testing for a small portion of the population, machine learning time series methods can learn and scale to accurately estimate the percentage of the total population that will become affected in the future.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/11/3880pandemicCOVID-19coronavirusmachine learningstatisticstime-series
spellingShingle Vasilis Papastefanopoulos
Pantelis Linardatos
Sotiris Kotsiantis
COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
Applied Sciences
pandemic
COVID-19
coronavirus
machine learning
statistics
time-series
title COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
title_full COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
title_fullStr COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
title_full_unstemmed COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
title_short COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population
title_sort covid 19 a comparison of time series methods to forecast percentage of active cases per population
topic pandemic
COVID-19
coronavirus
machine learning
statistics
time-series
url https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/10/11/3880
work_keys_str_mv AT vasilispapastefanopoulos covid19acomparisonoftimeseriesmethodstoforecastpercentageofactivecasesperpopulation
AT pantelislinardatos covid19acomparisonoftimeseriesmethodstoforecastpercentageofactivecasesperpopulation
AT sotiriskotsiantis covid19acomparisonoftimeseriesmethodstoforecastpercentageofactivecasesperpopulation