Li, S. and Linton, O.

When Will the Covid-19 Pandemic Peak?

Journal of Econometrics

Vol. 220(1) pp. 130-157 (2021)

Abstract: We carry out some analysis of the daily data on the number of new cases and the number of new deaths by (191) countries as reported to the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). Our benchmark model is a quadratic time trend model applied to the log of new cases for each country. We use our model to predict when the peak of the epidemic will arise in terms of new cases or new deaths in each country and the peak level. We also predict how long the number of new daily cases in each country will fall by an order of magnitude. Finally, we also forecast the total number of cases and deaths for each country. We consider two models that link the joint evolution of new cases and new deaths.

Keywords: Epidemic, Nonparametric, Prediction, Trend

JEL Codes: C10

Author links: Oliver Linton

Publisher's Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeconom.2020.07.049