Forecasting the Spread of COVID-19 Pandemic with Prophet

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic shook the whole world with its brutality, and the spread has been still rising on a daily basis, causing many nations to suffer seriously. This paper presents a medical stance on research studies of COVID-19, wherein we estimated a time-series data-based statistical model using prophet to comprehend the trend of the current pandemic in the coming future after July 29, 2020 by using data at a global level. Prophet is an open-source framework discovered by the Data Science team at Facebook for carrying out forecasting based operations. It aids to automate the procedure of developing accurate forecasts and can be customized according to the use case we are solving. The Prophet model is easy to work because the official repository of prophet is live on GitHub and is open for contributions and can be fitted effortlessly. The statistical data presented on the paper refers to the number of daily confirmed cases officially for the period January 22, 2020, to July 29, 2020. The estimated data produced by the forecast models can then be used by Governments and medical care departments of various countries to manage the existing situation, thus trying to flatten the curve in various nations as we believe that there is minimal time to do this. The inferences made using the model can be clearly comprehended without much effort. Furthermore, it tries to give an understanding of the past, present, and future trends by showing graphical forecasts and statistics. Compared to other models, prophet specifically holds its own importance and innovativeness as the model is fully automated and generates quick and precise forecasts that can be tunable additionally.

Prediction of COVID-19 Pandemic in Bangladesh: Dual Application of Susceptible-Infective-Recovered (SIR) and Machine Learning Approach

“…The finding of this study is consistent with an earlier study conducted in three countries, namely, Australia, Italy, and the UK, and indicates that the growth rate of confirmed cases will increase in the next year [ 48 ]. Another similar study conducted by Mahanty and team members observed that India, USA, and Brazil's growth rate of confirmed cases is increasing day by day, and the rate tends to be exponential [ 49 ]. In contrast, Hossain et al [ 50 ] showed that confirmed cases in Bangladesh gradually decreased for the next 40 days.…”

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