Forecasting Covid-19 New Cases in Sierra Leone

Understanding the pattern of COVID-19 is important for purposes of formulating and implementing appropriate precautionary measures to mitigate the spread of the epidemic. In this study, the ANN approach was applied to analyze daily COVID-19 cases in Sierra Leone. This study is based on monthly new cases of COVID-19 in Sierra Leone 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 criteria (Error, MSE and MAE) of the model used in this study indicate that the model is stable in forecasting daily COVID-19 cases in the country. It is projected that daily COVID-19 cases in Sierra Leone are likely to slightly increase and hover around a daily equilibrium of 26 cases over the bulk of the out-of-sample period. The government of Sierra Leone should continue to enforce adherence to the WHO sanitary rules and guidelines in order to suppress any further increase in the number of cases. In this regard, we also encourage the government to upscale the vaccination programme in the country.