COVID-19 epidemic in The World Health Organization African Region (WHOAR): Situation and forecast

To describe the dynamics and forecast the main parameters of the COVID-19 pandemic, the time series of daily cases in the World Health Organization African Region (WHOAR) from February 26th to December 29th, 2020 was analyzed. Estimates for expected values of parameters characterizing an epidemic (size of the epidemic, turning point, maximum value of daily cases, and basic reproductive number) were provided for both the first and the second wave, and for the entire ongoing pandemic in WHOAR. To this aim, the classical SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Removed) model and its approximations were applied to each identified wave. Our results suggest that the turning point of the COVID-19 first wave took place around July 20th, 2020. The first wave was expected to disappear by mid-December 2020, with a total of 1,200,000 expected cases. The second wave apparently started around August 19th, with an expected turning point by January 12th, 2021. The second wave is expected to end by August 9th, 2021, with 1,800,000 cumulative cases, and mounting up to 3,000,000 total cases between February 2020 and August 2021. Estimated basic reproduction numbers (R-0) were 1.27 (first wave) and 1.15 (second wave); the expected total number of deaths is around 66,000 victims.