Evaluation of individual and ensemble probabilistic forecasts of COVID-19 mortality in the US

Short-term probabilistic forecasts of the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have served as a visible and important communication channel between the scientific modeling community and both the general public and decision-makers. Forecasting models provide specific, quantitative, and evaluable predictions that inform short-term decisions such as healthcare staffing needs, school closures, and allocation of medical supplies. Starting in April 2020, the US COVID-19 Forecast Hub (https://covid19forecasthub.org/) collected, disseminated, and synthesized tens of millions of specific predictions from more than 90 different academic, industry, and independent research groups. A multi-model ensemble forecast that combined predictions from dozens of different research groups every week provided the most consistently accurate probabilistic forecasts of incident deaths due to COVID-19 at the state and national level from April 2020 through October 2021. The performance of 27 individual models that submitted complete forecasts of COVID-19 deaths consistently throughout this year showed high variability in forecast skill across time, geospatial units, and forecast horizons. Two-thirds of the models evaluated showed better accuracy than a naive baseline model. Forecast accuracy degraded as models made predictions further into the future, with probabilistic error at a 20-week horizon 3-5 times larger than when predicting at a 1-week horizon. This project underscores the role that collaboration and active coordination between governmental public health agencies, academic modeling teams, and industry partners can play in developing modern modeling capabilities to support local, state, and federal response to outbreaks. Significance StatementThis paper compares the probabilistic accuracy of short-term forecasts of reported deaths due to COVID-19 during the first year and a half of the pandemic in the US. Results show high variation in accuracy between and within stand-alone models, and more consistent accuracy from an ensemble model that combined forecasts from all eligible models. This demonstrates that an ensemble model provided a reliable and comparatively accurate means of forecasting deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic that exceeded the performance of all of the models that contributed to it. This work strengthens the evidence base for synthesizing multiple models to support public health action.

COVID-19 reopening strategies at the county level in the face of uncertainty: Multiple Models for Outbreak Decision Support

Policymakers make decisions about COVID-19 management in the face of considerable uncertainty. We convened multiple modeling teams to evaluate reopening strategies for a mid-sized county in the United States, in a novel process designed to fully express scientific uncertainty while reducing linguistic uncertainty and cognitive biases. For the scenarios considered, the consensus from 17 distinct models was that a second outbreak will occur within 6 months of reopening, unless schools and non-essential workplaces remain closed. Up to half the population could be infected with full workplace reopening; non-essential business closures reduced median cumulative infections by 82%. Intermediate reopening interventions identified no win-win situations; there was a trade-off between public health outcomes and duration of workplace closures. Aggregate results captured twice the uncertainty of individual models, providing a more complete expression of risk for decision-making purposes.

Management strategies and prediction of COVID-19 by a fractional order generalized SEIR model

In this project, we study a class of fractional order generalized SEIR epidemic models. Based on the public data from Jan. 22th to May 15th, 2020, we reliably estimate key epidemic parameters and make predictions on the peak point and possible ending time for the target region. We analyze the current management strategy and predict the future implementation of different management strategies. Numerical simulations which support our analysis are also given.

Forecast analysis of the epidemics trend of COVID-19 in the United States by a generalized fractional-order SEIR model

In this paper, a generalized fractional-order SEIR model is proposed, denoted by SEIQRP model, which has a basic guiding significance for the prediction of the possible outbreak of infectious diseases like COVID-19 and other insect diseases in the future. Firstly, some qualitative properties of the model are analyzed. The basic reproduction number R0 is derived. When R0 < 1, the disease-free equilibrium point is unique and locally asymptotically stable. When R0 > 1, the endemic equilibrium point is also unique. Furthermore, some conditions are established to ensure the local asymptotic stability of disease-free and endemic equilibrium points. The trend of COVID-19 spread in the United States is predicted. Considering the influence of the individual behavior and government mitigation measurement, a modified SEIQRP model is proposed, defined as SEIQRPD model. According to the real data of the United States, it is found that our improved model has a better prediction ability for the epidemic trend in the next two weeks. Hence, the epidemic trend of the United States in the next two weeks is investigated, and the peak of isolated cases are predicted. The modified SEIQRP model successfully capture the development process of COVID-19, which provides an important reference for understanding the trend of the outbreak.

A fractional-order SEIHDR model for COVID-19 with inter-city networked coupling effects

A novel coronavirus, designated as COVID-19, emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. In this paper, a mathematical model is proposed to analyze the dynamic behavior of COVID-19. Based on inter-city networked coupling effects, a fractional-order SEIHDR system with the real-data from 23 January to 18 March, 2020 of COVID19 is discussed. Meanwhile, hospitalized individuals and the mortality rates of three types of individuals (exposed, infected and hospitalized) are firstly taken into account in the proposed model. And infectivity of individuals during incubation is also considered in this paper. By applying least squares method and predictor-correctors scheme, the numerical solutions of the proposed system in the absence of the inter-city network and with the inter-city network are stimulated by using the real-data from 23 January to 18 - m March, 2020 where m is equal to the number of prediction days. Compared with integer-order system ( = 0), the fractional-order model without network is validated to have a better fitting of the data on Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Huanggang and other cities. In contrast to the case without network, the results indicate that the inter-city network system may be not a significant case to virus spreading for China because of the lock down and quarantine measures, however, it may have an impact on cities that have not adopted city closure. Meanwhile, the proposed model better fits the data from 24 February to 31, March in Italy, and the peak number of confirmed people is also predicted by this fraction-order model. Furthermore, the existence and uniqueness of a bounded solution under the initial condition are considered in the proposed system. Afterwards, the basic reproduction number R0 is analyzed and it is found to hold a threshold: the disease-free equilibrium point is locally asymptotically stable when R0 [≤] 1, which provides a theoretical basis for whether COVID-19 will become a pandemic in the future.