COVID-19 short-term forecasts Deaths 2021-09-23 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:
    [2021-04-29]The `legacy' download for areas of England is stuck at April 26, so we switched to the newer downloads. The results now include Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The map, however, only shows England.

Peak increase in estimated trend of Deaths in Latin America 2021-09-23

ArgentinaBahamasBelizeBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoNicaraguaPanamaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoUruguayVenezuela
Peak date (mm-dd)2021-06-10 --12-032021-06-122021-04-062021-03-292021-06-25 --09-032021-07-202021-07-312021-09-092021-05-262021-06-282021-05-122021-08-262021-06-0105-262021-01-122021-09-032021-04-112021-09-162021-05-282021-04-172021-05-16
Peak daily increment 569 6 82 2996 118 654 22 7806 12 59 7 5 45 17 3098 7 46 130 813 6 15 64 25
Days since peak 105 294 103 170 178 90 385 65 54 14 120 87 134 28 114 485 254 20 165 7 118 159 130
Last total 114772 512 399 18688 592964 37410 126032 6168 4031 32666 3152 13241 744 607 9627 1809 274139 203 7192 16139 199156 828 1437 6049 4346
Last daily increment 88 0 2 7 648 31 26 40 0 0 14 56 4 2 0 6 748 0 9 1 48 3 5 0 0
Last week 486 8 10 40 3391 92 206 219 4 107 74 294 38 11 175 37 3601 1 23 19 265 32 32 3 71
Previous peak date10-012021-07-16 --09-0707-2107-172021-01-222021-05-2404-1209-072021-01-032021-06-29 --07-1107-302021-05-1610-05 --07-232021-06-0807-182021-06-10 -- --09-20
Previous peak daily increment 2439 10 1427 1065 785 389 35 22 3440 25 57 3 35 8 1724 28 129 918 8 9
Low between peaks 108 3 371 37 96 4 -17 3 27 0 5 2 175 10 18 95 2 3

Deaths count forecast Latin America (bold red line in graphs) 2021-09-24 to 2021-09-30

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoVenezuela
2021-09-23 114772 18688 592964 37410 126032 6168 32666 3152 13241 744 9627 1809 274139 7192 199156 828 1437 4346
2021-09-24 115100 18700 593300 37450 126100 6226 32690 3163 13320 750 9683 1819 274600 7197 199200 833 1443 4364
2021-09-25 115200 18720 594100 37480 126100 6245 32720 3173 13380 754 9716 1848 275100 7205 199200 834 1451 4377
2021-09-26 115300 18740 594300 37510 126100 6253 32750 3184 13430 758 9718 1867 275800 7211 199300 836 1457 4391
2021-09-27 115500 18750 594500 37530 126100 6325 32770 3194 13460 763 9764 1882 276200 7217 199300 840 1463 4404
2021-09-28 115600 18760 595000 37550 126100 6379 32800 3205 13510 768 9790 1896 277000 7223 199300 843 1469 4417
2021-09-29 115700 18770 595700 37560 126100 6414 32820 3216 13570 773 9846 1906 277800 7228 199400 848 1474 4430
2021-09-30 115900 18780 596300 37600 126200 6436 32850 3227 13630 778 9846 1916 278400 7233 199400 852 1480 4443

Deaths count average forecast Latin America (bold black line in graphs) 2021-09-24 to 2021-09-30

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoVenezuela
2021-09-23 114772 18688 592964 37410 126032 6168 32666 3152 13241 744 9627 1809 274139 7192 199156 828 1437 4346
2021-09-24 114900 18700 593400 37430 126100 6206 32670 3164 13300 749 9664 1817 274400 7199 199200 831 1443 4359
2021-09-25 115000 18710 594100 37450 126100 6221 32680 3173 13350 754 9687 1831 274800 7205 199200 834 1449 4371
2021-09-26 115100 18710 594300 37460 126100 6231 32700 3182 13400 759 9695 1842 275400 7211 199300 837 1455 4383
2021-09-27 115300 18720 594600 37470 126100 6284 32710 3192 13440 765 9725 1851 275700 7216 199300 842 1460 4395
2021-09-28 115400 18720 595100 37480 126200 6325 32720 3201 13490 770 9746 1860 276500 7221 199300 846 1466 4407
2021-09-29 115500 18730 595600 37490 126200 6355 32730 3211 13550 776 9778 1869 277300 7226 199400 850 1471 4420
2021-09-30 115700 18740 596100 37510 126200 6380 32750 3220 13600 781 9786 1877 277900 7231 199400 855 1477 4432

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

[2021-04-29]The `legacy' download for areas of England is stuck at April 26, so we switched to the newer downloads. The results now include Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The map, however, only shows England.
[2021-01-07]Slideshow of forecasts, errors, and actuals 2020-06-30 to 2021-01-02: how England lost the battle.
[2020-10-27]Statistical short-term forecasting of the COVID-19 Pandemic (Jurgen Doornik, Jennie Castle, and David Hendry) is now published at the Journal of Clinical Immunology and Immunotherapy. open access
[2020-10-11]Short-term forecasting of the coronavirus pandemic (Jurgen Doornik, Jennie Castle, and David Hendry) is now in press at the International Journal of Forecasting. open access
[2020-10-10]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