Covid19 infection spread in Greece: Ensemble forecasting models with statistically calibrated parameters and stochastic noise

Politis, G.; Hadjileontiadis, L.

Following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus SARS-Cov2 in Europe and the subsequent failure of national healthcare systems to sufficiently respond to the fast spread of the pandemic , extensive statistical analysis and accurate forecasting of the epidemic in local communities is of primary importance in order to better organize the social and healthcare interventions and determine the epidemiological characteristics of the disease. For this purpose, a novel combination of Monte Carlo simulations, wavelet analysis and least squares optimization is applied to a known basis of SEIR compartmental models , resulting in the development of a novel class of stochastic epidemiological models with promising short and medium-range forecasting performance. The models are calibrated with the epidemiological data of Greece, while data from Switzerland and Germany are used as a supplementary background. The developed models are capable of estimating parameters of primary importance such as the reproduction number and the real magnitude of the infection in Greece. A clear demonstration of how the social distancing interventions managed to promptly restrict the epidemic growth in the country is included. The stochastic models are also able to generate robust 30-day and 60-day forecast scenarios in terms of new cases, deaths, active cases and recoveries.