Projecting the Short-Term Trend of COVID-19 in Iraq

ABSTRACT

The novel coronavirus that causes the now well-known COVID-19 illness has affected the whole world as the number of daily reported cases has exceeded 250,000. The spread trend of the virus across the globe has varied from one country to another, mainly because of each government's response. In this article, we discuss the statistics of the cases in Iraq and provide a projection model based on the current situation and government interventions. Using daily reported cases data from February 24, 2020 - July 31, 2020, we report 6-week-ahead projections of daily cases, critical cases, and deaths. Specifically, we propose a simple machine learning-based model based on Gaussian Process regression to project the future trend of COVID-19 in Iraq. This work aims to aid the Iraqi government by providing a statistical tool to provide future estimates of the suspected and death cases resulting from COVID-19 and make strategic decisions. © 2020 ACM.