Forecasting COVID-19 Cases in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Vietnam Using ARIMA and LSTM

Abstract

COVID-19 has severely impacted the global economy, including ASEAN countries. Various plans and strategies are still needed during the pandemic-to-epidemic transition period to minimize the risk of COVID-19 transmission. The research focuses on the total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Vietnam, which are among the ASEAN countries with the highest number of cases in Southeast Asia. Those countries have cultural similarities, where gathering with friends and family is an important part of social life. This research evaluates the ability of ARIMA and LSTM to predict COVID-19 cases in each country, using daily data from January 23, 2020 to October 22, 2022. Datasets published by Johns Hopkins University (JHU) and Our World in Data (OWID) are used, which are accessible through Github. Compared to ARIMA with  R2 of 0,8883 for Indonesia, 0,8353 for Malaysia, 0.97291 for the Philippines, and -3.105 for Vietnam, LSTM model can predict better in the four sampled ASEAN countries, with an R2 of 0.9996 for Indonesia, 0.9707 for Malaysia, 0.97291 for the Philippines, and 0.9200 for Vietnam.