Previously submitted to: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance (no longer under consideration since Mar 30, 2021)
Date Submitted: Oct 5, 2020
The Peak and Size of COVID-19 in India: SARIMA and Forecast
Background:
Following the USA, India ranks the second position globally for COVID-19 cases in the pandemic year 2020. The peak of daily confirmed cases and the size of COVID-19 disease are the most warranted feature for understanding the epidemiological stage of COVID-19 disease in India.
Objective:
The objectives of the study are to analyse the growth rates of the COVID-19 cases and to provide an expected count of the peak and size of COVID-19 cases in India. The study intends to explore the epidemiological stage of COVID-19 disease.
Methods:
Exponential model was applied to estimate the growth rates of daily COVID-19 cases. The estimated growth rates were used for calculating the doubling time. The Lotka-Euler method was applied to calculate the effective reproduction rate. SARIMA model was developed for the growth rates to predict daily COVID-19 cases. STATA, R and RStudio were used for statistical analyses and presentation of graphs.
Results:
Results show the best fit of the exponential model over the daily COVID-19 cases. The growth rates estimated from the exponential model shows an unsteady, modest decline overtime. Doubling time shows a linear increase. The effective reproduction rate declined from 3.6 (95% CI 3.37-3.82) persons in the third week of March 2020 to 1.14 (95% CI .91-1.36) persons at the end of August 2020 and 1.10 (95% CI .87-1.32) persons at the end of September 2020. The diagnosis of the developed SARIMA model confirms no trends in the residuals, no outliers, and nearly constant variance. The forecast suggests the peak value of daily COVID-19 cases around 104,000 counts on 19 September 2020. The estimated size COVID-19 cases account for approximately 105 lakhs at the end of December 2020.
Conclusions:
The exponential model unravels a shift and a modest decline in the growth of daily COVID-19 cases. The trends in R(t) show analogous to the trends in growth rates of daily COVID-19 cases. The study shows that the SARIMA model is suitable for projecting daily COVID-19 cases. The forecasts and projections is adjoining to the real-time peak value of daily COVID-19 cases in India and successfully explores the epidemiological stage of COVID-19 disease in India. The results shed light on the understanding of the trends and epidemiological stage of COVID-19 disease, in the cognisance of the peak and the size of COVID-19 disease in India.
Clinicaltrial:
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