IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jecnmx/v10y2022i2p18-d790245.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Using the SARIMA Model to Forecast the Fourth Global Wave of Cumulative Deaths from COVID-19: Evidence from 12 Hard-Hit Big Countries

Author

Listed:
  • Gaetano Perone

    (Department of Economics and Management, University of Pisa, 56124 Pisa, Italy)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a serious threat to all of us. It has caused an unprecedented shock to the world’s economy, and it has interrupted the lives and livelihood of millions of people. In the last two years, a large body of literature has attempted to forecast the main dimensions of the COVID-19 outbreak using a wide set of models. In this paper, I forecast the short- to mid-term cumulative deaths from COVID-19 in 12 hard-hit big countries around the world as of 20 August 2021. The data used in the analysis were extracted from the Our World in Data COVID-19 dataset. Both non-seasonal and seasonal autoregressive integrated moving averages (ARIMA and SARIMA) were estimated. The analysis showed that: (i) ARIMA/SARIMA forecasts were sufficiently accurate in both the training and test set by always outperforming the simple alternative forecasting techniques chosen as benchmarks (Mean, Naïve, and Seasonal Naïve); (ii) SARIMA models outperformed ARIMA models in 46 out 48 metrics (in forecasting future values), i.e., on 95.8% of all the considered forecast accuracy measures (mean absolute error [MAE], mean absolute percentage error [MAPE], mean absolute scaled error [MASE], and the root mean squared error [RMSE]), suggesting a clear seasonal pattern in the data; and (iii) the forecasted values from SARIMA models fitted very well the observed (real-time) data for the period 21 August 2021–19 September 2021 for almost all the countries analyzed. This article shows that SARIMA can be safely used for both the short- and medium-term predictions of COVID-19 deaths. Thus, this approach can help government authorities to monitor and manage the huge pressure that COVID-19 is exerting on national healthcare systems.

Suggested Citation

  • Gaetano Perone, 2022. "Using the SARIMA Model to Forecast the Fourth Global Wave of Cumulative Deaths from COVID-19: Evidence from 12 Hard-Hit Big Countries," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-23, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jecnmx:v:10:y:2022:i:2:p:18-:d:790245
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1146/10/2/18/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2225-1146/10/2/18/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Pack, David J., 1990. "In defense of ARIMA modeling," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 6(2), pages 211-218, July.
    2. Yousaf, Muhammad & Zahir, Samiha & Riaz, Muhammad & Hussain, Sardar Muhammad & Shah, Kamal, 2020. "Statistical analysis of forecasting COVID-19 for upcoming month in Pakistan," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 138(C).
    3. Tadeusz Kufel, 2020. "ARIMA-based forecasting of the dynamics of confirmed Covid-19 cases for selected European countries," Equilibrium. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Economic Policy, Institute of Economic Research, vol. 15(2), pages 181-204, June.
    4. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    5. Kim, Sungil & Kim, Heeyoung, 2016. "A new metric of absolute percentage error for intermittent demand forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 669-679.
    6. Liu, Xiaolei & Lin, Zi & Feng, Ziming, 2021. "Short-term offshore wind speed forecast by seasonal ARIMA - A comparison against GRU and LSTM," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 227(C).
    7. Yan-Ling Zheng & Li-Ping Zhang & Xue-Liang Zhang & Kai Wang & Yu-Jian Zheng, 2015. "Forecast Model Analysis for the Morbidity of Tuberculosis in Xinjiang, China," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(3), pages 1-13, March.
    8. Gaetano Perone, 2020. "An ARIMA model to forecast the spread and the final size of COVID-2019 epidemic in Italy," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 20/07, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Annas, Suwardi & Isbar Pratama, Muh. & Rifandi, Muh. & Sanusi, Wahidah & Side, Syafruddin, 2020. "Stability analysis and numerical simulation of SEIR model for pandemic COVID-19 spread in Indonesia," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    10. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    11. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    12. Wang, Peipei & Zheng, Xinqi & Li, Jiayang & Zhu, Bangren, 2020. "Prediction of epidemic trends in COVID-19 with logistic model and machine learning technics," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    13. Korolev, Ivan, 2021. "Identification and estimation of the SEIRD epidemic model for COVID-19," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(1), pages 63-85.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Dunfrey Pires Aragão & Andouglas Gonçalves da Silva Junior & Adriano Mondini & Cosimo Distante & Luiz Marcos Garcia Gonçalves, 2023. "COVID-19 Patterns in Araraquara, Brazil: A Multimodal Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(6), pages 1-21, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gaetano Perone, 2022. "Comparison of ARIMA, ETS, NNAR, TBATS and hybrid models to forecast the second wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Italy," The European Journal of Health Economics, Springer;Deutsche Gesellschaft für Gesundheitsökonomie (DGGÖ), vol. 23(6), pages 917-940, August.
    2. Hess, Alexander & Spinler, Stefan & Winkenbach, Matthias, 2021. "Real-time demand forecasting for an urban delivery platform," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    3. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    4. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & de Menezes, Lilian M., 2022. "Forecasting natural gas consumption using Bagging and modified regularization techniques," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    5. Nghia Chu & Binh Dao & Nga Pham & Huy Nguyen & Hien Tran, 2022. "Predicting Mutual Funds' Performance using Deep Learning and Ensemble Techniques," Papers 2209.09649, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2023.
    6. Athanasopoulos, George & Hyndman, Rob J. & Song, Haiyan & Wu, Doris C., 2011. "The tourism forecasting competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 822-844.
    7. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2020. "The M4 Competition: 100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-74.
    8. Perone, G., 2020. "Comparison of ARIMA, ETS, NNAR and hybrid models to forecast the second wave of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Italy," Health, Econometrics and Data Group (HEDG) Working Papers 20/18, HEDG, c/o Department of Economics, University of York.
    9. Posch, Konstantin & Truden, Christian & Hungerländer, Philipp & Pilz, Jürgen, 2022. "A Bayesian approach for predicting food and beverage sales in staff canteens and restaurants," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 321-338.
    10. Hewamalage, Hansika & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bandara, Kasun, 2021. "Recurrent Neural Networks for Time Series Forecasting: Current status and future directions," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(1), pages 388-427.
    11. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Petropoulos, Fotios & Trapero, Juan R., 2014. "Improving forecasting by estimating time series structural components across multiple frequencies," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 291-302.
    12. Sasikiran Kandula & Jeffrey Shaman, 2019. "Reappraising the utility of Google Flu Trends," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-16, August.
    13. Alysha M De Livera, 2010. "Automatic forecasting with a modified exponential smoothing state space framework," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 10/10, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    14. Philippe St-Aubin & Bruno Agard, 2022. "Precision and Reliability of Forecasts Performance Metrics," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 4(4), pages 1-22, October.
    15. Kang, Yanfei & Hyndman, Rob J. & Smith-Miles, Kate, 2017. "Visualising forecasting algorithm performance using time series instance spaces," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 345-358.
    16. Huber, Jakob & Stuckenschmidt, Heiner, 2020. "Daily retail demand forecasting using machine learning with emphasis on calendric special days," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1420-1438.
    17. Bergmeir, Christoph & Hyndman, Rob J. & Benítez, José M., 2016. "Bagging exponential smoothing methods using STL decomposition and Box–Cox transformation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 303-312.
    18. Bialowolski, Piotr & Kuszewski, Tomasz & Witkowski, Bartosz, 2015. "Bayesian averaging vs. dynamic factor models for forecasting economic aggregates with tendency survey data," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 9, pages 1-37.
    19. Drachal, Krzysztof, 2021. "Forecasting crude oil real prices with averaging time-varying VAR models," Resources Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    20. Li, Li & Kang, Yanfei & Li, Feng, 2023. "Bayesian forecast combination using time-varying features," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(3), pages 1287-1302.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jecnmx:v:10:y:2022:i:2:p:18-:d:790245. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.