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Review
. 2020 Jun 25;17(12):4582.
doi: 10.3390/ijerph17124582.

Prediction of the Number of Patients Infected with COVID-19 Based on Rolling Grey Verhulst Models

Yu-Feng Zhao  1 , Ming-Huan Shou  1 , Zheng-Xin Wang  1
Affiliations
Review

Prediction of the Number of Patients Infected with COVID-19 Based on Rolling Grey Verhulst Models

Yu-Feng Zhao et al. Int J Environ Res Public Health. .

Abstract

The outbreak of a novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) has caused a large number of residents in China to be infected with a highly contagious pneumonia recently. Despite active control measures taken by the Chinese government, the number of infected patients is still increasing day by day. At present, the changing trend of the epidemic is attracting the attention of everyone. Based on data from 21 January to 20 February 2020, six rolling grey Verhulst models were built using 7-, 8- and 9-day data sequences to predict the daily growth trend of the number of patients confirmed with COVID-19 infection in China. The results show that these six models consistently predict the S-shaped change characteristics of the cumulative number of confirmed patients, and the daily growth decreased day by day after 4 February. The predicted results obtained by different models are very approximate, with very high prediction accuracy. In the training stage, the maximum and minimum mean absolute percentage errors (MAPEs) are 4.74% and 1.80%, respectively; in the testing stage, the maximum and minimum MAPEs are 4.72% and 1.65%, respectively. This indicates that the predicted results show high robustness. If the number of clinically diagnosed cases in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China, where COVID-19 was first detected, is not counted from 12 February, the cumulative number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in China will reach a maximum of 60,364-61,327 during 17-22 March; otherwise, the cumulative number of confirmed cases in China will be 78,817-79,780.

Keywords: COVID-19; grey Verhulst model; grey prediction; rolling mechanism.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Changes in the numbers of confirmed and newly confirmed cases in China from 20 January to 20 February.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Cumulative numbers of suspected cases, deaths and cured patients in China from January 20 to 20 February.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Flow chart of the derived grey Verhulst model.
Figure 4
Figure 4
The rolling mechanism of the rolling grey Verhulst models.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Model prediction with rolling sequence length of 7.
Figure 6
Figure 6
Model prediction with rolling sequence length of 8.
Figure 7
Figure 7
Model prediction with rolling sequence length of 9.
Figure 8
Figure 8
Changes in the daily growth of the number of confirmed patients in China.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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