Forecasting Covid-19 Deaths in New Zealand

In this study, the ANN approach was applied to analyze COVID-19 deaths in New Zealand. The employed data covers the period 1 January 2020 to 20 April 2021 and the out-of-sample period ranges over the period 21 April 2021 to 31 August 2021. The residuals and forecast evaluation criteria (Error, MSE and MAE) of the applied model indicate that the model is quite stable. The results of the study indicate that the country may record no COVID-19 related deaths over the out-of-sample period. Therefore there is need for the government of New Zealand to ensure adherence to safety guidelines and scale up COVID-19 vaccine roll out in order to achieve herd immunity.