COVID-19 short-term forecasts Deaths 2020-11-16 Latin American Countries


General information

  • Forecasts produced by Jennie Castle, Jurgen Doornik, and David Hendry, researchers at the University of Oxford. These are our forecasts, and should not be considered official forecasts from, or endorsed by, any of: University of Oxford, Oxford Martin School, Nuffield College, or Magdalen College.
  • These forecasts are short term time-series extrapolations of the data. They are not based on epidemiological modelling or simulations. All forecasts are uncertain: their success can only be determined afterwards. Many mitigation strategies are in place, which, if successful, invalidate our forecasts. An explanation of our methods is provided below.
  • A list of notes is below. The most recent note:
    [2020-10-11]Short-term forecasting of the coronavirus pandemic (with Jennie Castle and David Hendry) is now in press at the International Journal of Forecasting.

Peak increase in estimated trend of Deaths in Latin America 2020-11-16

ArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruVenezuela
Peak date (mm-dd)10-0109-0707-2107-1708-2309-2809-0309-0708-0706-0507-1007-3009-2910-0507-2309-2607-2309-20
Peak daily increment 2439 1427 1065 785 318 18 22 3440 11 43 6 35 4 1724 28 20 2947 9
Days since peak 46 70 118 122 85 49 74 70 101 164 129 109 48 42 116 51 116 57
Last total 35727 8859 166014 14863 34223 1566 2286 13016 1047 3938 232 2839 231 98861 2881 1602 35231 855
Last daily increment 291 10 216 44 192 20 1 8 3 6 0 16 0 319 8 15 54 4
Last week 1544 51 3212 252 1095 64 17 167 27 106 0 59 7 3019 64 86 288 21
Previous peak date -- -- -- -- -- --04-1205-10 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Previous peak daily increment 22 167
Low between peaks 4 14

Deaths count forecast Latin America (bold red line in graphs) 2020-11-17 to 2020-11-23

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruVenezuela
2020-11-16 35727 8859 166014 14863 34223 1566 13016 1047 3938 2839 98861 2881 1602 35231 855
2020-11-17 36210 8871 166000 14900 34400 1583 13040 1051 3939 2849 99200 2892 1614 35290 858
2020-11-18 36530 8886 166500 14920 34570 1592 13070 1056 3950 2858 99800 2902 1626 35350 861
2020-11-19 36760 8899 167100 14990 34750 1604 13090 1060 3964 2867 100300 2913 1638 35410 864
2020-11-20 37030 8913 167600 15030 34920 1614 13120 1064 3984 2876 100800 2923 1650 35470 867
2020-11-21 37260 8925 168200 15080 35090 1623 13140 1068 4012 2886 101400 2934 1661 35530 871
2020-11-22 37380 8936 168400 15120 35260 1623 13170 1072 4024 2895 101600 2944 1673 35580 874
2020-11-23 37710 8948 168600 15170 35430 1642 13190 1077 4028 2904 101800 2954 1684 35640 877

Deaths count average forecast Latin America (bold black line in graphs) 2020-11-17 to 2020-11-23

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruVenezuela
2020-11-16 35727 8859 166014 14863 34223 1566 13016 1047 3938 2839 98861 2881 1602 35231 855
2020-11-17 35980 8870 166300 14900 34390 1575 13030 1051 3950 2848 99500 2890 1616 35280 859
2020-11-18 36280 8882 166800 14920 34560 1587 13060 1056 3962 2858 100100 2901 1629 35330 862
2020-11-19 36520 8894 167300 14980 34730 1600 13070 1060 3975 2868 100600 2912 1641 35370 866
2020-11-20 36780 8908 167800 15020 34900 1612 13090 1065 3991 2878 101200 2923 1654 35410 870
2020-11-21 37050 8921 168200 15060 35070 1625 13110 1070 4011 2888 101700 2934 1666 35460 874
2020-11-22 37270 8933 168400 15100 35250 1634 13130 1074 4022 2898 101900 2945 1679 35500 877
2020-11-23 37600 8946 168600 15140 35430 1653 13140 1079 4029 2908 102100 2956 1693 35540 881

Further information

  • We believe these forecasts fill a useful gap in the short run. They give an indication of what is likely to happen in the next few days, removing some aspect of surprise. Moreover, a noticeable drop in comparison to the extrapolations could be an indication that the implemented policies are having some impact. It is difficult to understand exponential growth. We hope that these forecasts may help to convince viewers to adhere to the policies implemented by their respective governments, and keep all arguments factual and measured.
  • We use the data repository for the 2019 Novel Coronavirus Visual Dashboard operated by the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering. This is updated daily, but we tend to update our forecasts only every other day.
    US state data as of 2020-03-28 is courtesy of the New York Times.
  • We can only provide forecasts of what is measured. If confirmed cases are an underestimate of actual cases, then our forecasts will also be underestimates. No other epidemiological data is used. Data definition and collection differs between countries and may change over time.
  • We will update the methodology as we learn what is happening in the next few days or weeks. Once the number of cases levels off, there is no need to provide these forecasts anymore.
  • Countries where the counts are very low or stable have been omitted.
  • The graphs have dates on the horizontal axis (yyyy-mm-dd) and cumulative counts on the vertical axis. They show
    1. bold dark grey line (with circles): observed counts (Johns Hopkins CSSE);
    2. many light grey lines (with open circles): forecasts using different model settings and starting up to four periods back;
    3. red line (with open circles): single forecasts path using default model settings;
    4. black line (with crosses): average of all forecasts, recentered on the last observation;
    5. thin green lines: some indication of uncertainty around the red forecasts, but we do not know how reliable that is.
    Both the red line forecasts and the black lines are also given in the tables above. These forecasts differ, we are currently inclined to use the average forecasts.
  • The forecasts are constructed as follows:
    1. An overall `trend' is extracted by taking a window of the data at a time. In each window we draw `straight lines' which are selected using an automatic econometric procedure (`machine learning'). All straight lines are collected and averaged, giving the trend.
    2. Forecasts are made using the estimated trend, but we note that this must be done carefully, because simply extrapolating the flexible insample trend would lead to wildly fluctuating forecast. We use the `Cardt' method, which has been found to work well in other settings.
    3. Residuals from the trend are also forecast, and combined with trend forecasts into an overall forecast.
  • Scenario forecasts are constructed very differently: smooth versions of the Chinese experience are matched at different lag lengths with the path of each country. This probably works best from the peak, or the slowdown just before (but we include it for the UK nonetheless).
  • The forecast evaluation shows past forecasts, together with the outcomes (in the grey line with circles).
  • EU-BS is Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania together.
  • This paper describes the methodology and gives further references. Also available as Nuffield Economics Discussion Paper 2020-W06. Still preliminary is the documentation of the medium term forecasts.

Recent changes and notes

[2020-10-11]Short-term forecasting of the coronavirus pandemic (with Jennie Castle and David Hendry) is now in press at the International Journal of Forecasting.
[2020-10-10]Temporarily removed forecasts from the Chinese scenarios, while investigating possibility to use own history from the first wave.
Added information on the previous peak (if present) to the peak tables.
Local forecasts for England: now dropping last four observations.
[2020-07-01] Modified the short-term model to allow for (slowly changing) seasonality. Many countries show clear seasonality after the initial period, likely caused by institutional factors regarding data collection. This seasonality was also getting in the way of peak detection. As a consequence estimates of the peak date may have changed for countries with strong seasonality.
Added forecasts of cumulative confirmed cases for lower tier local authorities of England. The data is available from 2020-07-02 including all tests (pillar one and two). Only authorities with more than 5 cases in the previous week are included.
[2020-06-29] Tables in April included the world, but not the world as we know it (double counting China and the US). So removed the world from those old tables.
Why short-term forecasts can be better than models for predicting how pandemics evolve just appeared at The Conversation.
Thursday 2 July webinar at the FGV EESP - São Paolo School of Economics. This starts at 16:00 UK time (UTC+01:00) and streamed here.
[2020-06-24] Research presentation on short-term COVID-19 forecasting on 26 June (14:00 UK time) at the Quarterly Forecasting Forum of the IIF UK Chapter.
[2020-06-06] Removed Brazil from yesterday's forecasts (only; last observation 2020-06-05).
[2020-06-04] Data issues with confirmed cases for France.
Added an appendix to the short term paper with further forecast comparisons for European and Latin American countries.
Both Sweden and Iran have lost their peak in confirmed cases. For Sweden the previous peak was on 24 April (daily peak of 656 cases), for Iran it was on 31 March (peak of 3116). For Iran this looks like a second wave, with increasing daily counts for the last four weeks. For Sweden this is a sudden jump in confirmed cases in the last two days, compared to a fairly steady weekly pattern over the previous six weeks.
[2020-05-20] Problem with UK confirmed cases: negative daily count. This makes the forecasts temporarily unreliable.
Updated the second paper.
[2020-05-18] Minor fixes to the improved version of scenario forecasting, backported to 2020-05-13.
[2020-05-13] We now omit countries with fewer than 200 confirmed cases in the last week (25 for deaths).
The short-term paper has some small updates, including further comparisons with other models.
Data for Ecuador are not reliable enough for forecasting.
Switched to an improved version of scenario forecasting.
[2020-05-06] The New York Times is in the process of redefining its US state data. Unfortunately, at the moment only the last observation has changed (e.g New York deaths jumped from 19645 on 2020-05-05 to 25956 a day later). This means the data is currently useless; however it does bring it close to the Johns Hopkins/CSSE count (25626 on 2020-05-06). The aggregate US count is based on JH/CSSE so unaffected. We now use Johns Hopkins/CSSE US state data, including all states with sufficient counts. So the new forecasts cannot be compared to those previously.
A minor change is that we show the graph without scenario forecast if no peak has been detected yet.
[2020-04-29] See our blog entry at the International Institute of Forecasters.
US history of death counts revised in Johns Hopkins/CSSE data.
UK death counts have been revised to include the deaths in care homes. In the Johns Hopkins/CSSE data set, which we use, the entire history has been revised. So forecasts made up to 2020-04-29 cannot be compared to later outcomes. In the ECDC data set only the last observation has changed, causing a jump in the series.
[2020-04-27] Our short-term COVID-19 forecasting paper is now available as Nuffield Economics Discussion Paper 2020-W06.
A small adjustment has been made to the scenario forecast methodology, and will be documented shortly.
[2020-04-24] A summary of our work on short-term COVID-19 forecasting appeared as a voxeu.
[2020-04-17] Bird and Nielsen look into nowcasting death counts in England.
[2020-04-16] Added scenario forecasts to all graphs now. This would now be the preferred forecast for most.
This is the first time with a peak in confirmed UK cases (also for deaths, but this is uncertain because it is at the same date).
[2020-04-10] Updated documentation with better description of short-term estimates and peak determination.
[2020-04-09] Added table with estimated peak dates (if happened) and dates to and since the peak. Note that this can be a local peak, and subsequent re-acceleration (or data revisions) can result in a new peak later.
[2020-04-08] Minor correction to peak estimates. Added table with scenario forecasts.
[2020-04-06] Added a post hoc estimate of the peak number of cases. This needs at least three confirmed observations (four for deaths) after the event. It is based on the averaged smooth trend, and can change later or be a local peak. It is marked with a vertical line with the date label, or a date with left arrow in the bottom left corner of the graph. This is backported to 2020-04-04.
[2020-04-02] Now including more US States, based on New York Times data.
[2020-03-31] Scenario forecasts, based on what happened in China earlier this year, are presented for several countries (line marked with x). Created more plausible 90% confidence bands (dotted line in same colour).
[2020-03-26] Scenario forecasts that are based on what happened in China earlier this year, only for Italy.
[2020-03-24] Our forecasts are starting to overestimate in some cases. This was always expected to happen when the increase starts to slow down. Scenario forecasts that are based on what happened in China earlier this year, but only for Italy and Spain sofar.

Initial visual evaluation of forecasts of Deaths