Mathematical models and deep learning for predicting the number of individuals reported to be infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Abstract

We introduce a novel methodology for predicting the time evolution of the number of individuals in a given country reported to be infected with SARS-CoV-2. This methodology, which is based on the synergy of explicit mathematical formulae and deep learning networks, yields algorithms whose input is only the existing data in the given country of the accumulative number of individuals who are reported to be infected. The analytical formulae involve several constant parameters that were determined from the available data using an error-minimizing algorithm. The same data were also used for the training of a bidirectional long short-term memory network. We applied the above methodology to the epidemics in Italy, Spain, France, Germany, USA and Sweden. The significance of these results for evaluating the impact of easing the lockdown measures is discussed.