Time Series Models for COVID-19 New Cases in Top Seven Infected African Countries

Abstract

Introduction: In Africa region on the date of December 09, 2021 at 14:46 GMT, the total cumulative cases of COVID-19 was 8,889,437 with total deaths and total recoveries of 224,731 (2.5% of death rate) and 8,185,382 (92% of recovery rate) respectively. Thus, this study aimed modelling and forecasting of COVID-19 new cases in top seven infected African countries using time series models. Methods: The top seven infected African countries COVID-19 new cases dataset was taken from our World COVID-19 dataset. The study period was from February 14 to September 06, 2020. Different time series models were used for modelling and forecasting of COVID-19 new cases data. Models comparisons were done by normalized BIC, root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute percentage error (MAPE), and R-squared values. Results: The COVID-19 new cases data of Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Morocco, and South Africa were fitted by ARIMA (0,1,0), ARIMA (0,1,0), Damped trend, Brown, and ARIMA (0,1,14) models in the study period, respectively. Whereas Ghana, and Nigeria COVID-19 new cases data were followed by simple exponential smoothing models. The 95% confidence levels for lowest to highest forecasted COVID-19 new cases were 258 to 197 with decreasing trend in Algeria, 63 to 933 with increasing trend in Egypt, 636 to 2,141 with increasing trend in Ethiopia, 0 to 1,022 with constant trend in Ghana, 1,900 to 2,807 with increasing trend in Morocco, 0 to 543 with constant trend in Nigeria, and 2,056 to 2,444 with increasing trend in South Africa for the next one month (from September 7 to October 6, 2020). Conclusion: The findings of the study used for preparedness planning against further spread of the COVID-19 epidemic in African countries. The author recommends 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 and then strong appropriate public health and social measures must be instituted on the ground again and again before the virus is distributed and attacked more and more peoples in the region. And, the researcher recommended that risk factors of COVID-19 new cases should be conducted for next time in Africa countries.