Feasibility of very short-term forecast models for COVID-19 hospital-based surveillance

Rev Soc Bras Med Trop. 2021 Feb 10:54:e07622020. doi: 10.1590/0037-8682-0762-2020. eCollection 2021.

Abstract

Introduction: We evaluated the performance of Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) and Holt's models to forecast the weekly COVID-19 reported cases in six units of a large hospital.

Methods: Cases reported from epidemiologic weeks (EW) 12-37 were selected as the training period, and from EW 38-41 as the test period.

Results: The models performed well in forecasting cases within one or two weeks following the end of the time-series, but forecasts for a more distant period were inaccurate.

Conclusions: Both models offered reasonable performance in very short-term forecasts for confirmed cases of COVID-19.

MeSH terms

  • Bayes Theorem
  • COVID-19*
  • Feasibility Studies
  • Forecasting
  • Hospitals
  • Humans
  • Models, Theoretical
  • SARS-CoV-2