The COVID-19 pandemic represents the most significant public health disaster since the 1918 influenza pandemic. During pandemics such as COVID-19, timely and reliable spatiotemporal forecasting of epidemic dynamics is crucial. Deep learning-based time series models for forecasting have recently gained popularity and have been successfully used for epidemic forecasting. Here we focus on the design and analysis of deep learning-based models for COVID-19 forecasting. We implement multiple recurrent neural network-based deep learning models and combine them using the stacking ensemble technique. In order to incorporate the effects of multiple factors in COVID-19 spread, we consider multiple sources such as COVID-19 confirmed and death case count data and testing data for better predictions. To overcome the sparsity of training data and to address the dynamic correlation of the disease, we propose clustering-based training for high-resolution forecasting. The methods help us to identify the similar trends of certain groups of regions due to various spatio-temporal effects. We examine the proposed method for forecasting weekly COVID-19 new confirmed cases at county-, state-, and country-level. A comprehensive comparison between different time series models in COVID-19 context is conducted and analyzed. The results show that simple deep learning models can achieve comparable or better performance when compared with more complicated models. We are currently integrating our methods as a part of our weekly forecasts that we provide state and federal authorities.
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COVID-19 ensemble models using representative clustering
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, there have been various attempts to develop realistic models to both predict the spread of the disease and evaluate policy measures aimed at mitigation. Different models that operate under different parameters and assumptions produce radically different predictions, creating confusion among policy-makers and the general population and limiting the usefulness of the models. This newsletter article proposes a novel ensemble modeling approach that uses representative clustering to identify where existing model predictions of COVID-19 spread agree and unify these predictions into a smaller set of predictions. The proposed ensemble prediction approach is composed of the following stages: (1) the selection of the ensemble components, (2) the imputation of missing predictions for each component, and (3) representative clustering in application to time-series data to determine the degree of agreement between simulation predictions. The results of the proposed approach will produce a set of ensemble model predictions that identify where simulation results converge so that policy-makers and the general public are informed with more comprehensive predictions and the uncertainty among them.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2030685
- PAR ID:
- 10222282
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- SIGSPATIAL Special
- Volume:
- 12
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 1946-7729
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 33 to 41
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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