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Forecasting the Number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in Ethiopia Using Exponential Smoothing Times Series Model

Received: 15 January 2021    Accepted: 2 February 2021    Published: 4 March 2021
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Abstract

Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19 was first originated in Wuhan, Hubei province in China around December 2019 andspread out all over the world within few weeks. Following the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the outbreak as pandemic on 11 March 2019. The coronavirus (COVID-19) have a fast transmission nature and grow exponentially across the globe. Subsequently, to model the exponential growing nature of the virus, different researchers conducted their study using a linear based time series (such as ARMA family) models. However, such linear time series models cannot handle data having an exponential growing pattern. Since linear based time series models cannot handle a data having an exponential growing pattern, we applied the common exponential family models such as an Exponential Growth Model, Simple Exponential Smoothing (SES), and Double Exponential Smoothing (DES) methods in Ethiopia from March 14, 2020 to June 05, 2020. The results of the study showed that double exponential smoothing methods was appropriate in forecasting the future number of COVID-19 cases in Ethiopia as dictated by lowest value of root mean sum of square error. The forecasting model shows that the number of coronavirus cases in Ethiopia grows exponentially. In general, the forecast helps the Ethiopian government, policy makers, and the society at all to take preventive measures before the transmission become out of control especially rural areas since until now, most of the cases were observed in urban areas.

Published in International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Science (Volume 7, Issue 1)
DOI 10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11
Page(s) 1-6
Creative Commons

This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited.

Copyright

Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Science Publishing Group

Keywords

Coronavirus, COVID-19, Exponential Smoothing Model, Forecasting, RMSSE

References
[1] Vinay Kumar Reddy Chimmula, Lei Zhang. (2020). Time series forecasting of COVID-19 transmission in Canada using LSTM networks. Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, 135; 109864.
[2] Yonar H., Yonar A., Tekindal MA, Tekindal M. (2020). Modeling and Forecasting for the number of cases of the COVID-19 pandemic with the Curve Estimation Models, the Box-Jenkins and Exponential Smoothing Methods. EJMO 2020; 4 (2): 160–165.
[3] Yichi L., Bowen W., Ruiyang P., Chen Z., Yonglong Z., Zhuoxun L, Xia J. and Bin Z. (2020). Mathematical Modeling and Epidemic Prediction of COVID-19 and Its Significance to Epidemic Prevention and Control Measures. Annals of Infectious Disease and Epidemiology; 5 (1).
[4] Domenico, B., Marta G., Lazzaro V., Silvia A., and Massimo C. (2020). Application of the ARIMA model on the COVID- 2019 epidemic dataset. Data in brief, 29: 105340.
[5] Kumar P. Prediction of the COVID-19 Pandemic for the Top 15 Affected Countries: Advanced Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) Model. JMIR Public Health Surveill. 2020 May 13; 6 (2): e19115. doi: 10.2196/19115. PMID: 32391801; PMCID: PMC7223426.
[6] Vasilis Papastefanopoulos, Pantelis Linardatos and Sotiris Kotsiantis. (2020). COVID-19: A Comparison of Time Series Methods to Forecast Percentage of Active Cases per Population. Applied science, 10, 3880; doi: 10.3390/app10113880.
[7] Ankaralı, H., Erarslan, N., Pasin, Özge, & Mahmood, A. K. (2020). Modeling and Short-Term Forecasts of Indicators for COVID-19 Outbreak in 25 Countries at the end of March. Bangladesh Journal of Medical Science, 19, 6-20. https://doi.org/10.3329/bjms.v19i0.47611.
[8] Gautam A, Jha J, Singh AK. Modeling and forecasting of confirmed and recovered cases of COVID-19 in India. Int J Acad Med 2020; 6: 83-90.
[9] World Health Organization (WHO), Coronavirus. (2020).
[10] Nazim, A., & Afthanorhan, A. (2014). A comparison between single exponential smoothing (SES), double exponential smoothing (DES), Holt’s (Brown) and adaptive response rate exponential smoothing (ARRES) techniques in forecasting Malaysia population. Global Journal of Mathematical Analysis, 2 (4), 276-280.
[11] Ruey, S. Tsay. (2005). Analysis of Financial Time Series, Second Edition. John Wiley& Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
[12] Douglas C. Montgomery, Cheryl L. Jennings, and Murat Kulahci. (2008). Introduction to Time Series Analysis and Forecasting, 1st publication. A JOHN WILEY &. SONS, INC., PUBLICATION, United States of America.
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  • APA Style

    Teshome Hailemeskel Abebe. (2021). Forecasting the Number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in Ethiopia Using Exponential Smoothing Times Series Model. International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Science, 7(1), 1-6. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11

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    ACS Style

    Teshome Hailemeskel Abebe. Forecasting the Number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in Ethiopia Using Exponential Smoothing Times Series Model. Int. J. Biomed. Eng. Clin. Sci. 2021, 7(1), 1-6. doi: 10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11

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    AMA Style

    Teshome Hailemeskel Abebe. Forecasting the Number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in Ethiopia Using Exponential Smoothing Times Series Model. Int J Biomed Eng Clin Sci. 2021;7(1):1-6. doi: 10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11

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  • @article{10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11,
      author = {Teshome Hailemeskel Abebe},
      title = {Forecasting the Number of Coronavirus (COVID-19) Cases in Ethiopia Using Exponential Smoothing Times Series Model},
      journal = {International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Clinical Science},
      volume = {7},
      number = {1},
      pages = {1-6},
      doi = {10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11},
      url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijbecs.20210701.11},
      eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijbecs.20210701.11},
      abstract = {Coronavirus, also known as COVID-19 was first originated in Wuhan, Hubei province in China around December 2019 andspread out all over the world within few weeks. Following the outbreak, the World Health Organization (WHO) declares the outbreak as pandemic on 11 March 2019. The coronavirus (COVID-19) have a fast transmission nature and grow exponentially across the globe. Subsequently, to model the exponential growing nature of the virus, different researchers conducted their study using a linear based time series (such as ARMA family) models. However, such linear time series models cannot handle data having an exponential growing pattern. Since linear based time series models cannot handle a data having an exponential growing pattern, we applied the common exponential family models such as an Exponential Growth Model, Simple Exponential Smoothing (SES), and Double Exponential Smoothing (DES) methods in Ethiopia from March 14, 2020 to June 05, 2020. The results of the study showed that double exponential smoothing methods was appropriate in forecasting the future number of COVID-19 cases in Ethiopia as dictated by lowest value of root mean sum of square error. The forecasting model shows that the number of coronavirus cases in Ethiopia grows exponentially. In general, the forecast helps the Ethiopian government, policy makers, and the society at all to take preventive measures before the transmission become out of control especially rural areas since until now, most of the cases were observed in urban areas.},
     year = {2021}
    }
    

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