Forecasting COVID-19 cases and deaths in epidemic-mitigating European countries by Richards function-based regression analyses

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has hit many countries, and in some European countries it has been mitigated since April. Here we applied Richards function to simulate and forecast the course of COVID-19 epidemics in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal and Switzerland. Potential total COVID-19 confirmed cases in these countries were estimated to be 240400±1300, 294100±4000, 178500±800, 176900±700, 155400±1000, 57900±400, 24000±200, 46200±300, 30000±300 and 30700±100 respectively. Most of these countries are predicted to approach ending stage between late May and early June such that daily new cases will become minimal, which may guide societal and economic restorations. In addition, total COVID-19 deaths were estimated to be 33500±300, 28200±200, 27800±200, 8740±80, 4500±30, 9250±70, 1530±20, 6240±50, 1380±10 and 1960±8, respectively. To our best knowledge, this is the first study forecasting the COVID-19 epidemic by applying the Richard function-based regression analysis.