With the evolution of the Covid pandemic, several characteristics of its development have been observed throughout the world and in the Brazilian states. Since its creation, the CovidLP project has set out to offer appropriate prediction models, based entirely on observed data, for Brazil and the world. However, given the various developments of the pandemic, the project's capabilities - both in terms of personnel and in terms of computation - impose some decisions that had to be taken to ensure that the project develops in an appropriate manner, following as far as possible the quality standards determined by the group.
The project monitoring group observed a pattern of weekly seasonality and the arrival of the second and third waves of the pandemic in several countries around the world. These characteristics had not been observed previously. Adequacy to these patterns generates a demand for the project far beyond that achievable by the team, due to the profusion of possibilities arising from the numerous combinations of the model's characteristics (number of waves, presence of seasonality in each wave, type of seasonality of each wave, etc.) . This makes it impossible to identify and implement at the moment the most appropriate combination for each country at the global level.
Due to this essentially operational difficulty, it was decided that the main focus of the most complete modeling will be given to Brazil and its states. This will already give users a good idea about the possibilities that the project provides. In the other countries of the world, the multiple wave model will be implemented without including seasonality, which will provide a more comprehensive but admittedly less specific overview. Fortunately, the project has its software (Package 'PandemicLP' available for installation) and code open to all, allowing the most interested user to make use of all the project's features in addition to those available in the app.
Finally, vaccination programs have recently started around the world. We see this fact with great optimism and, we know that in case of success, it will drastically affect the behavior of the evolution of the pandemic around the world, requiring the incorporation of new characteristics in our models to adapt to these future events. Thus, we remain attentive to all these changes.
