Forecasting Covid-19 Deaths in Portugal

In this research article, the ANN approach was applied to analyze daily COVID-19 related deaths in Portugal. This study is based on daily COVID-19 deaths in Portugal for the period 1 January 2020 – 20 April 2021. The out-of-sample forecast covers the period 21 April – 31 August 2021. The residuals and forecast evaluation criteria (Error, MSE and MAE) of the applied model show that the model is stable in forecasting daily COVID-19 related deaths in the country. The results of the study indicate that daily COVID-19 deaths in Portugal are likely to decrease at an increasing rate, characterized by two peaks over the out-of-sample period. In the out-of-sample period, the first peak for COVID-19 related deaths is likely to occur around 20 June 2021 while the second peak may be experienced around 23 August 2021. We recommend that the government of Portugal should ensure adherence to lock-down measures while creating massive awareness about the COVID-19 pandemic as well as scaling up vaccinations.