COVID-19 Forecast: China as a Reference

With the onset of the COVID-19 outbreak, we look at the data and use a simple model inspired by China’s example to predict when the outbreak will abate in various countries.

Forecasts: https://www.codoma.tech/blog/covid19-forecast/ (updated daily)

The forecasts tell us that we, every human being, need to keep following the measures (social distancing, diligent heygenic habits, etc.) for around 70 days for the pandemic to abate.

Let’s stick together (metaphorically, remember social distancing) and stop the pandemic! Stay safe everyone!

Method

Since China was the first country hit, they took strong measures in response to the pandemic. Although the response was criticized in the beginning, most countries now followed suit. China therefore serves as a plausible reference to how the outbreak develops in various countries.

Examining the data, the number of new cases in China looked very similar to the known sigmoid function.

We follow an (admittedly simple) model: we fit a parameterized sigmoid function over the data from each country to predict:

• response date: the date when the country effectively started responding to the outbreak
• recession date: the date when for the first time the number of new cases is below 5 / day

Note: we created our own metrics here, please enlighten us if you have sounder ones.

Examining the response dates of China, South Korea and Germany, they are estimated by error of no more than 3 days.