Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.

Since 8th March 2020 up to the time of writing, we have been producing near real-time weekly estimates of SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility and forecasts of deaths due to COVID-19 for all countries with evidence of sustained transmission, shared online. We also developed a novel heuristic to combine weekl...

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Main Authors: Sangeeta Bhatia, Kris V Parag, Jack Wardle, Rebecca K Nash, Natsuko Imai, Sabine L Van Elsland, Britta Lassmann, John S Brownstein, Angel Desai, Mark Herringer, Kara Sewalk, Sarah Claire Loeb, John Ramatowski, Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg, Elita Jauneikaite, H Juliette T Unwin, Steven Riley, Neil Ferguson, Christl A Donnelly, Anne Cori, Pierre Nouvellet
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2023-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286199&type=printable
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author Sangeeta Bhatia
Kris V Parag
Jack Wardle
Rebecca K Nash
Natsuko Imai
Sabine L Van Elsland
Britta Lassmann
John S Brownstein
Angel Desai
Mark Herringer
Kara Sewalk
Sarah Claire Loeb
John Ramatowski
Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg
Elita Jauneikaite
H Juliette T Unwin
Steven Riley
Neil Ferguson
Christl A Donnelly
Anne Cori
Pierre Nouvellet
author_facet Sangeeta Bhatia
Kris V Parag
Jack Wardle
Rebecca K Nash
Natsuko Imai
Sabine L Van Elsland
Britta Lassmann
John S Brownstein
Angel Desai
Mark Herringer
Kara Sewalk
Sarah Claire Loeb
John Ramatowski
Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg
Elita Jauneikaite
H Juliette T Unwin
Steven Riley
Neil Ferguson
Christl A Donnelly
Anne Cori
Pierre Nouvellet
author_sort Sangeeta Bhatia
collection DOAJ
description Since 8th March 2020 up to the time of writing, we have been producing near real-time weekly estimates of SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility and forecasts of deaths due to COVID-19 for all countries with evidence of sustained transmission, shared online. We also developed a novel heuristic to combine weekly estimates of transmissibility to produce forecasts over a 4-week horizon. Here we present a retrospective evaluation of the forecasts produced between 8th March to 29th November 2020 for 81 countries. We evaluated the robustness of the forecasts produced in real-time using relative error, coverage probability, and comparisons with null models. During the 39-week period covered by this study, both the short- and medium-term forecasts captured well the epidemic trajectory across different waves of COVID-19 infections with small relative errors over the forecast horizon. The model was well calibrated with 56.3% and 45.6% of the observations lying in the 50% Credible Interval in 1-week and 4-week ahead forecasts respectively. The retrospective evaluation of our models shows that simple transmission models calibrated using routine disease surveillance data can reliably capture the epidemic trajectory in multiple countries. The medium-term forecasts can be used in conjunction with the short-term forecasts of COVID-19 mortality as a useful planning tool as countries continue to relax public health measures.
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spelling doaj-art-d539c8986e9e47c789bfe957b4ffe8d82025-08-20T03:44:46ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032023-01-011810e028619910.1371/journal.pone.0286199Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.Sangeeta BhatiaKris V ParagJack WardleRebecca K NashNatsuko ImaiSabine L Van ElslandBritta LassmannJohn S BrownsteinAngel DesaiMark HerringerKara SewalkSarah Claire LoebJohn RamatowskiGina Cuomo-DannenburgElita JauneikaiteH Juliette T UnwinSteven RileyNeil FergusonChristl A DonnellyAnne CoriPierre NouvelletSince 8th March 2020 up to the time of writing, we have been producing near real-time weekly estimates of SARS-CoV-2 transmissibility and forecasts of deaths due to COVID-19 for all countries with evidence of sustained transmission, shared online. We also developed a novel heuristic to combine weekly estimates of transmissibility to produce forecasts over a 4-week horizon. Here we present a retrospective evaluation of the forecasts produced between 8th March to 29th November 2020 for 81 countries. We evaluated the robustness of the forecasts produced in real-time using relative error, coverage probability, and comparisons with null models. During the 39-week period covered by this study, both the short- and medium-term forecasts captured well the epidemic trajectory across different waves of COVID-19 infections with small relative errors over the forecast horizon. The model was well calibrated with 56.3% and 45.6% of the observations lying in the 50% Credible Interval in 1-week and 4-week ahead forecasts respectively. The retrospective evaluation of our models shows that simple transmission models calibrated using routine disease surveillance data can reliably capture the epidemic trajectory in multiple countries. The medium-term forecasts can be used in conjunction with the short-term forecasts of COVID-19 mortality as a useful planning tool as countries continue to relax public health measures.https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286199&type=printable
spellingShingle Sangeeta Bhatia
Kris V Parag
Jack Wardle
Rebecca K Nash
Natsuko Imai
Sabine L Van Elsland
Britta Lassmann
John S Brownstein
Angel Desai
Mark Herringer
Kara Sewalk
Sarah Claire Loeb
John Ramatowski
Gina Cuomo-Dannenburg
Elita Jauneikaite
H Juliette T Unwin
Steven Riley
Neil Ferguson
Christl A Donnelly
Anne Cori
Pierre Nouvellet
Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
PLoS ONE
title Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
title_full Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
title_fullStr Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
title_full_unstemmed Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
title_short Retrospective evaluation of real-time estimates of global COVID-19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts.
title_sort retrospective evaluation of real time estimates of global covid 19 transmission trends and mortality forecasts
url https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0286199&type=printable
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