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Methodology: I fit the same model I use for generating short-term national forecasts to my estimate of historical cases. Due to the extremely limited nature of worldwide, I did not include multiple variants in the model. I also did not model the spread of new variants in the future as it is difficult to predict when and where they will emerge. Instead, I modeled a single virus and an overall level of immune escape to match the loss of immunity, be it due to new variants or the gradual loss of immunity over time.
Limitations: Without incorporating distinct variants into the model, I expect less accurate predictions of day-to-day infection trends.
Historical cases were estimated using data from the World Health Organization's Global Influenza Surveillance and Response System (GISRS). However, due to the extremely low and inconsistent rate at which COVID-19 cases are reported to GISRS, it is difficult to discern true infection trends. I attempted to adjust for reduced testing rates using an infection heuristic based off that used by covid19-projections.com, but a lack of quality data makes this difficult.
WHO Americas Region (Excluding USA)
Through November of 2026 in all nations of the WHO Americas region excluding the United States, the model expects:
892 million COVID-19 infections (central projection)
424 million COVID-19 infections (optimistic projection)
1.4 billion COVID-19 infections (pessimistic projection)
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