Abstract
The SARS-CoV-2 virus causes the disease COVID-19, and has caused high morbidity and mortality worldwide. Empirical models are useful tools to predict future trends of disease progression such as COVID-19 over the near-term. A modified Incidence Decay and Exponential Adjustment (m-IDEA) model was developed to predict the progression of infectious disease outbreaks. The modification allows for the production of precise daily estimates, which are critical during a pandemic of this scale for planning purposes. The m-IDEA model was employed using a range of serial intervals given the lack of knowledge on the true serial interval of COVID-19. Both deterministic and stochastic approaches were applied. Model fitting was accomplished through minimizing the sum-of-square differences between predicted and observed daily incidence case counts, and performance was retrospectively assessed. The performance of the m-IDEA for projection cases in the near-term was improved using shorter serial intervals (1-4 days) at early stages of the pandemic, and longer serial intervals at mid- to late-stages (5-9 days) thus far. This, coupled with epidemiological reports, suggests that the serial interval of COVID-19 might increase as the pandemic progresses, which is rather intuitive: Increasing serial intervals can be attributed to gradual increases in public health interventions such as facility closures, public caution and social distancing, thus increasing the time between transmission events. In most cases, the stochastic approach captured the majority of future reported incidence data, because it accounts for the uncertainty around the serial interval of COVID-19. As such, it is the preferred approach for using the m-IDEA during dynamic situation such as in the midst of a major pandemic.