COVID-19 short-term forecasts Deaths 2022-01-18 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 2022-01-18

ArgentinaBahamasBarbadosBelizeBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoNicaraguaPanamaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoUruguayVenezuela
Peak date (mm-dd) --2021-10-182021-10-252021-11-102021-10-192021-06-152021-10-072021-12-092021-09-2009-032021-12-062021-10-052021-09-04 --2021-11-292021-05-122021-08-312021-08-2505-26 --2021-09-032021-12-182021-10-072021-12-182021-11-182021-05-16
Peak daily increment 14 3 14 23 2009 166 70 34 22 141 15 61 8 45 17 731 7 130 64 8 27 2 25
Days since peak 92 85 69 91 217 103 40 120 502 43 105 136 50 251 140 146 602 137 31 103 31 61 247
Last total 118420 719 271 611 20291 621803 39427 131268 7425 4269 34232 3837 16191 1101 780 10457 2551 301469 218 7545 16844 203645 1221 3224 6253 5383
Last daily increment 189 0 2 0 37 325 1 138 4 0 26 3 12 5 0 2 15 0 0 17 23 181 5 16 5 0
Last week 750 2 4 4 188 1162 137 739 31 10 533 9 63 26 0 8 45 705 0 59 174 452 20 105 48 13
Previous peak date --2021-07-16 --12-032021-06-12 --2021-07-032021-06-242021-06-0704-122021-07-202021-01-032021-06-292021-09-182021-06-2807-302021-06-09 -- --2021-08-022021-06-082021-07-112021-06-082021-06-062021-06-0909-20
Previous peak daily increment 10 6 85 116 647 26 22 7806 25 59 6 5 35 5 10 129 548 8 13 53 9
Low between peaks 1 0 6 7 25 10 4 -36 3 27 0 5 2 18 26 2 6 1 3

Deaths count forecast Latin America (bold red line in graphs) 2022-01-19 to 2022-01-25

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorGuatemalaGuyanaJamaicaMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoUruguay
2022-01-18 118420 20291 621803 39427 131268 7425 34232 16191 1101 2551 301469 7545 16844 203645 1221 3224 6253
2022-01-19 118600 20330 621800 39430 131400 7425 34230 16200 1108 2556 301600 7556 16850 203700 1225 3244 6257
2022-01-20 118800 20330 621800 39460 131500 7426 34250 16210 1114 2556 301700 7566 16850 203800 1228 3271 6260
2022-01-21 118900 20360 622000 39480 131600 7427 34290 16220 1120 2556 301800 7575 16850 203900 1231 3293 6264
2022-01-22 119000 20370 622100 39490 131700 7427 34300 16220 1126 2556 302100 7585 16850 203900 1234 3313 6268
2022-01-23 119100 20430 622100 39510 131800 7427 34310 16230 1132 2556 302100 7595 16860 204000 1237 3332 6271
2022-01-24 119300 20450 622300 39520 131900 7436 34320 16240 1138 2556 302100 7604 16860 204100 1240 3350 6275
2022-01-25 119400 20480 622500 39520 132000 7441 34340 16250 1143 2556 302200 7614 16870 204100 1243 3368 6279

Deaths count average forecast Latin America (bold black line in graphs) 2022-01-19 to 2022-01-25

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorGuatemalaGuyanaJamaicaMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoUruguay
2022-01-18 118420 20291 621803 39427 131268 7425 34232 16191 1101 2551 301469 7545 16844 203645 1221 3224 6253
2022-01-19 118600 20330 621900 39430 131400 7431 34240 16200 1105 2557 301600 7555 16890 203700 1224 3241 6259
2022-01-20 118700 20340 622100 39460 131400 7434 34260 16210 1107 2560 301700 7562 16900 203800 1226 3261 6264
2022-01-21 118700 20370 622200 39480 131500 7437 34320 16210 1110 2563 301800 7570 16910 203800 1228 3279 6269
2022-01-22 118800 20390 622300 39500 131600 7438 34330 16220 1113 2566 302100 7577 16930 203800 1230 3298 6276
2022-01-23 118900 20440 622400 39510 131700 7438 34340 16220 1116 2569 302100 7585 16940 203900 1232 3316 6284
2022-01-24 119000 20460 622500 39530 131800 7443 34350 16230 1118 2572 302100 7593 16970 203900 1235 3334 6288
2022-01-25 119000 20500 622700 39530 131800 7447 34360 16230 1121 2575 302200 7601 16980 204000 1237 3352 6293

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