Weekly Update on COVID-19 Forecast Hub’s Cumulative U.S. Death Predictions
Topic: Weekly update on COVID-19 forecast hub’s cumulative U.S. death predictions
Expert: Nicholas Reich, director of the UMass Influenza Forecasting Center of Excellence
and associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology in the School of Public Health
and Health Sciences
Available: Via phone, email and web video conferencing
Contact: Nicholas Reich – nick@schoolph.umass.edu
Patty Shillington – pshillington@umass.edu, 305-606-9909
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Nicholas Reich, director of the UMass Influenza Forecasting Center of Excellence and associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology in the School of Public Health and Health Sciences, is available to discuss the updated projections, four weeks out, for number of COVID-19 deaths nationally and by state.
The new forecast for cumulative U.S. deaths by May 30 is 103,000, with uncertainty values between 93,000 and 119,000 also considered plausible. Interactive visualizations also show the breakdown of projected deaths by state: https://reichlab.io/covid19-forecast-hub/
The COVID-19 forecast hub, curated by Reich and his team, now represents 20 models from 15 teams of highly respected infectious-disease forecasters from such institutions as Johns Hopkins University, Columbia University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Geneva, Georgia Tech, UCLA and University of Washington. In addition to gathering models to make easy side-by-side comparisons of different forecasts, they have implemented an “ensemble” forecast that offers a more accurate picture of the future than any single model can project.
Reich says: “We’ve added more models and, in general, the models are showing more agreement this week than they have over the last three weeks. Our ensemble forecast helps capture the diversity of these modeling teams in a single forecast, to better understand the full range of future possibilities.”
Background on Nicholas Reich can be found here. Follow Reich on Twitter @reichlab