Projecting the Spread of COVID19 for Germany

Jean Roch Donsimoni; Rene Glawion; Bodo Plachter; Klaus Waelde

There is no need to stress the importance of the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) for public health, economic consequences and well-being of individuals. Yet, there is a need for more knowledge about objective information and reliable predictions of how the pandemic will likely evolve in the months to come. How large is the risk of any individual to get infected on a particular day or within a week? How does this risk change over time? How large is the expected number of individuals ever infected and how large is the number of individuals infected at any point in time? The latter question is the main concern of the public, politicians and health practitioners to ensure su¢ cient provision of health services. Finally, what are the e¤ects of policy interventions that are already implemented and that are being discussed? This paper starts by describing what we know quantitatively about the spread of the Corona epidemic in the Chinese province of Hubei and in South Korea. This o¤ers insights from two episodes of epidemics that seem to be coming to an end and that help in making predictions for other countries. We then compare the time-series evidence from Hubei and South Korea with cross-sectional information in European countries.