Forecasting Covid-19 New Cases in Sao Tome

The Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approach was applied in this piece of work, to analyze COVID-19 daily cases in Sao Tome. This study is based on monthly new cases of COVID-19 in Sao Tome for the period 1 January 2020 – 25 March 2021. The out-of-sample forecast covers the period 26 March 2021 – 31 July 2021. The residuals and forecast evaluation statistics (Error, MSE and MAE) of the applied model indicate that the model is adequate. The predictions show that daily COVID-19 cases in Sao Tome are generally likely to hover around an equilibrium case volume of about 24 cases per day over the out-of-sample period. However, the government of Sao Tome should ensure the continued compliance to control and preventive COVID-19 measures such as social distancing, quarantine, isolation, face-mask wearing as well as vaccinations.