Short-Term Prediction Methodology of COVID-19 Infection in South Korea

Ko, Grace S.; Yoon, Taeseon

The purpose of this study is to predict the short-term trend of the COVID-19 pandemic and give insights into effective response strategies. Based on the basic SIR model, a compartment method for modeling the course of an epidemic, the short-term infection change ratio md, is derived. The number of infected people can be predicted using this ratio. We calculated different md values on a weekly basis. As we tested different combinations of md, the prediction from the combination of md based on a week and md based on 4 weeks was found to be statistically reliable. According to our regression analysis, our approach has an explanatory power of 96%. However, this method could only predict 1 week ahead of current data. Thus, we use LSTM, a deep learning method applied for time series data, to forecast the trend 4 weeks ahead. The forecasted trends show that the number of infected people in South Korea will reach its peak a week after the writing of this work and start to gradually decline after that.