Modeling and Forecasting of COVID-19 New Cases in Top 10 Infected African Countries 

Abstract

Background: COVID-19 total cases have reached 1,083,071 (83.5%) in the top 10 infected African countries (South Africa, Egypt, Morocco, Ethiopia, Nigeria, Algeria, Ghana, Kenya, Cameroon, and Côte d’Ivoire) from Feb 14 to Sep 6, 2020. Then, this study aimed to model and forecast of COVID-19 new cases in these top 10 infected African countries.Methods: In this study, the COVID 19 new cases data have been modeled and forecast using curve estimation regression and time series models for these top 10 infected African countries from Feb 14 to Sep 6, 2020. Results: From July to August, the prevalence of COVID-19 cumulative cases was declined in South Africa, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ghana, Cameron, Nigeria, and Algeria by 31%, 26%, 22%, 20%, 14%, 12%, and 4%, respectively. But, it was highly raised in Ethiopia and Morocco by 41%, and 38% in this period, respectively. In Kenya, it was raised only by 1%. In this study, the cubic regression models for the ln(COVID-19 new cases) data were relatively the best fit for Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, and South Africa. And, the quadratic regression models for the data were the best fit for Cameroon, Cote dʹIvoire, and Ghana. The Algeria data was followed by the logarithmic regression model. In the time series analysis, the Algeria, Egypt, and South Africa COVID-19 new cases data have fitted the ARIMA (0,1,0), ARIMA (0,1,0), and ARIMA (0,1,14) models, respectively. The Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria data have fitted the simple exponential smoothing models. Ethiopia, Kenya, and Morocco data have followed the Damped trend, Holt, and Brown exponential smoothing models, respectively. In the analysis, the trends of COVID-19 new cases will be declined for Algeria and Ethiopia, and the trends will be constant for Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, and Nigeria. But, it will be raised slightly for Egypt and Kenya, and significantly for Morocco and South Africa from September 7 to October 6, 2020.Conclusion: This study was conducted with the current measures; the forecasts and trends obtained may differ from the number of cases that occur in the future. Thus, the study finding should be useful in preparedness planning against the further spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in African countries. And, the researcher recommended that as many countries continue to relax restrictions on movement and mass gatherings, and more are opening their air spaces’, and the countries’ other public and private sectors are reopening. So, strong appropriate public health and social measures must be instituted on the grounds again.