COVID-19 short-term forecasts Deaths 2022-02-17 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 2022-02-17

ArgentinaBahamasBarbadosBelizeBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaDominican RepublicEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaGuyanaHaitiHondurasJamaicaMexicoNicaraguaPanamaParaguayPeruSurinameTrinidad and TobagoUruguayVenezuela
Peak date (mm-dd) --2021-10-18 --2021-11-102022-01-192021-06-152021-10-072022-01-292021-09-202021-02-062022-01-112022-02-092021-09-042021-09-182022-02-012022-01-252022-01-232022-02-0405-262022-02-082021-09-032022-01-272021-10-072021-12-142022-02-022021-06-29
Peak daily increment 13 12 53 2009 166 248 34 22 312 8 61 6 64 17 9 473 7 18 130 197 9 26 24 17
Days since peak 122 99 29 247 133 19 150 376 37 8 166 152 16 23 25 13 632 9 167 21 133 65 15 233
Last total 124924 768 307 633 21342 642156 40936 137733 7874 4354 35105 4027 16709 1203 814 10608 2769 314598 223 7993 18116 208964 1307 3549 6838 5572
Last daily increment 159 0 2 0 0 1060 201 147 27 3 67 8 30 1 5 0 14 470 0 6 37 342 3 14 18 8
Last week 1065 11 16 2 102 4689 566 969 102 13 251 45 98 13 7 96 49 3044 1 67 272 999 9 42 109 51
Previous peak date --2021-07-162021-10-2612-032021-06-12 --2021-07-032021-06-242021-06-0704-122021-07-202021-10-052021-06-292021-05-262021-11-292021-08-102021-08-312021-08-25 --2021-08-022021-06-082021-07-112021-06-082021-06-062021-06-09 --
Previous peak daily increment 10 3 6 85 116 647 26 22 7763 15 59 7 8 38 17 731 10 129 548 8 13 53
Low between peaks 1 0 5 7 25 10 1 -32 0 27 2 0 0 2 106 1 18 26 2 6 1

Deaths count forecast Latin America (bold red line in graphs) 2022-02-18 to 2022-02-24

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruTrinidad and TobagoUruguayVenezuela
2022-02-17 124924 21342 642156 40936 137733 7874 35105 4027 16709 10608 2769 314598 7993 18116 208964 3549 6838 5572
2022-02-18 125300 21360 642900 41120 137900 7891 35130 4034 16730 10610 2775 315100 8011 18160 209200 3556 6858 5579
2022-02-19 125500 21430 643500 41210 138100 7891 35150 4041 16750 10610 2781 315900 8037 18180 209300 3573 6886 5581
2022-02-20 125700 21470 643700 41300 138300 7891 35170 4048 16760 10610 2787 315900 8056 18230 209500 3584 6910 5585
2022-02-21 125900 21500 644000 41400 138400 7920 35190 4054 16760 10610 2793 315900 8073 18290 209700 3594 6931 5590
2022-02-22 126200 21530 644700 41450 138600 7938 35210 4061 16780 10610 2799 316100 8090 18340 209800 3603 6952 5596
2022-02-23 126300 21550 645800 41490 138700 7954 35230 4068 16790 10630 2805 317000 8105 18390 210000 3611 6972 5602
2022-02-24 126500 21570 646800 41630 138900 7975 35240 4075 16820 10630 2811 317300 8120 18430 210200 3619 6991 5608

Deaths count average forecast Latin America (bold black line in graphs) 2022-02-18 to 2022-02-24

DateArgentinaBoliviaBrazilChileColombiaCosta RicaEcuadorEl SalvadorGuatemalaHondurasJamaicaMexicoPanamaParaguayPeruTrinidad and TobagoUruguayVenezuela
2022-02-17 124924 21342 642156 40936 137733 7874 35105 4027 16709 10608 2769 314598 7993 18116 208964 3549 6838 5572
2022-02-18 125100 21360 643200 41040 137900 7895 35130 4035 16740 10630 2777 315600 8008 18150 209200 3557 6858 5579
2022-02-19 125200 21390 644000 41120 138100 7897 35140 4042 16760 10640 2784 316400 8021 18170 209400 3567 6879 5585
2022-02-20 125300 21410 644400 41190 138200 7898 35150 4049 16760 10640 2790 316400 8037 18220 209600 3575 6898 5591
2022-02-21 125600 21430 644800 41280 138400 7929 35220 4056 16770 10650 2796 316600 8044 18270 209700 3582 6916 5598
2022-02-22 125800 21450 645600 41320 138600 7951 35230 4063 16780 10660 2800 316800 8069 18320 209900 3590 6934 5605
2022-02-23 126100 21470 646600 41360 138700 7968 35240 4071 16800 10680 2806 317500 8084 18360 210000 3596 6951 5611
2022-02-24 126300 21480 647500 41490 138900 7989 35270 4078 16830 10690 2812 317700 8101 18410 210200 3603 6969 5618

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