Nowcasting and Forecasting the Spread of COVID-19 and Healthcare Demand In Turkey, A Modelling Study

Abdullah Ucar; Seyma Arslan; Muhammed Yusuf Ozdemir

A new type of coronavirus (later named Sars-Cov-2) drew attention in 31 December 2019 after the reporting of 27 unidentified pneumonia cases detected in Wuhan, China to the World Health Organization (WHO). (3, 4) . The epidemic caused by the virus, called COVID-19, spread rapidly between countries and continents and was identified as a pandemic by the WHO on March 11, 2020.(5) Rapid progression of the COVID-19 pandemic and its devastating effects in many countries (even in the developed countries like Italy and Spain); has revealed the necessity of epidemic modeling studies to evaluate the course of the epidemic and its burden on the health system properly. Stochastic, deterministic and agent-based models are used in scientific literature to model the COVID-19 spread. (6, 7) . Among these studies, the report published by Imperial College London on March 16, 2020, take an important place. (8) . Following this report, the United Kingdom government has tighten its national policy for the COVID-19 pandemic and started the lockdown by the following week. (9) .