Predicting a Pandemic: testing crowd wisdom and expert forecasting amidst the novel COVID-19 outbreak

Abstract

Taking countermeasures to protect against future events requires predicting what the future will be like. In late 2019, a novel coronavirus known as NCov-2019 emerged in Wuhan, China, and has since spread to most countries in the world. Anticipatory responses by civilians facing the crisis have included self-isolation measures, extreme stockpiling of food or medical supplies, and other forms of preparation to meet the expected crisis. However, no consensus exists as to the accuracy of civilian expectations, nor toward the relative value of different informational sources used by citizens to build these expectations (e.g. mainstream news as opposed to an educational background in virology). In the present study, we used an online survey (n = 333 in final sample) to collect individual characteristics and general knowledge regarding viruses and the novel coronavirus, in addition to their forecasts for the various outcomes expected to result from it in the near future. This will allow for the individual correlates of accurate forecasting to be known by 2021, which could prove important for assigning relative weights to forecasts for other events in the future.