COVID-19 Forecasts: Cases

Reported and forecasted new and total COVID-19 deaths as of February 22, 2021.

Interpretation of Forecasts of New Cases

• This week, ensemble forecasts of new reported COVID-19 cases over the next 4 weeks included forecasts from 31 modeling groups, each of which contributed a forecast for at least one jurisdiction.
• This week’s national ensemble predicts that the number of newly reported COVID-19 cases will likely decrease over the next 4 weeks, with 142,000 to 584,000 new cases likely reported in the week ending March 20, 2021.
• The state- and territory-level ensemble forecasts predict that over the next 4 weeks, the number of new reported cases per week will likely decrease in 37 jurisdictions, which are indicated in the forecast plots below. Trends in numbers of future reported cases are uncertain or predicted to remain stable in the other states and territories.

National Forecasts

• The figure shows the number of new COVID-19 cases reported in the United States each week from December 19 through February 20 and forecasted new cases over the next 4 weeks, through March 20.
• Models make various assumptions about the levels of social distancing and other interventions, which may not reflect recent changes in behavior. See model descriptions below for details on the assumptions and methods used to produce the forecasts.

Download national forecast data excel icon[XLS – 20 KB]

State & County Forecasts

State-level and county-level forecasts show the predicted number of new COVID-19 cases for the next 4 weeks by jurisdiction. Each forecast figure uses a different scale due to differences in the number of COVID-19 cases between jurisdictions. To aid in comparisons between jurisdictions, the ensemble plot for each location has a second axis (in grey) that shows the expected number of cases per 100,000 people. Only forecasts meeting a set of ensemble inclusion criteria are shown; further details are available here: https://covid19forecasthub.org/doc/ensemble/external icon. Plots of the state-level and county-level ensemble forecasts and the underlying data can be downloaded below.

Download state forecasts pdf icon[PDF – 11 MB]

Download all forecast data excel icon[CSV – 17 MB]

Additional forecast data and information on forecast submission are available at the COVID-19 Forecast Hubexternal icon.

Forecast Inclusion and Assumptions

The teams with forecasts included in the ensembles are displayed below. Forecasts are included when they meet a set of submission and data quality requirements, further described here: https://github.com/reichlab/covid19-forecast-hub#ensemble-modelexternal icon.

The forecasts make different assumptions about social distancing measures. Additional individual model details are available here: https://github.com/cdcepi/COVID-19-Forecasts/blob/master/COVID-19_Forecast_Model_Descriptions.mdexternal icon

Intervention assumptions fall into multiple categories:

• These modeling groups make assumptions about how levels of social distancing will change in the future:
  • Columbia Universityexternal icon (Model: Columbia)
  • COVID-19 Simulator Consortiumexternal icon (Model: Covid19Sim)
  • Johns Hopkins University, Infectious Disease Dynamics Lab (Model: JHU-IDD)
• These groups assume that existing social distancing measures will continue through the projected 4-week time period:
  • Bob Paganoexternal icon (Model: BPagano)
  • Carnegie Mellon Delphi Groupexternal icon (Model: CMU)
  • Columbia University and University of North Carolinaexternal icon (Model: Columbia-UNC)
  • Discrete Dynamical Systemsexternal icon (Model: DDS)
  • Facebook AI Research (Model Facebook)
  • IEMexternal icon (Model: IEM)
  • Iowa State Universityexternal icon (Model: ISU)
  • Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineeringexternal icon (model: JHU-CSSE)
  • Johns Hopkins University, Applied Physics Labexternal icon (model: JHU-APL)
  • Johns Hopkins University, University of North Carolina, and Googleexternal icon (Model: JHU-UNC-Google)
  • Karlen Working Groupexternal icon (Model: Karlen)
  • LockNQuayexternal icon (Model: LNQ)
  • Los Alamos National Laboratoryexternal icon (Model: LANL)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute for Data, Systems, and Societyexternal icon (Model: MIT-ISOLAT)
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Operations Research Centerexternal icon (Model: MIT-ORC)
  • Microsoft AIexternal icon (Model: Microsoft)
  • Northeastern University, Laboratory for the Modeling of Biological and Socio-technical Systemsexternal icon (Model: MOBS)
  • OneQuietNightexternal icon (Model: OneQuietNight)
  • Qi-Jun Hongexternal icon (Model: QJHong)
  • Robert Walravenexternal icon (Model: ESG)
  • Signature Scienceexternal icon (Model: SignatureScience)
  • State University of New York, Upstate Medical University and Syracuse Universityexternal icon (Model: UpstateSU)
  • University of Central Floridaexternal icon (Model: UCF)
  • University of Georgia, Center for the Ecology of Infectious Diseases Forecasting Working Groupexternal icon (Model: UGA-CEID)
  • University of Massachusetts, Amherstexternal icon (Model: UMass)
  • University of Michiganexternal icon (Model: UM)
  • University of Southern Californiaexternal icon (Model: USC)
• The University of Virginiaexternal icon (Model: UVA) model makes both assumptions, combining different models.

¹ The full range of the prediction intervals is not visible for all state plots. Please see the forecast data for the full range of state specific prediction intervals.