Winter forecasting of respiratory viruses in Victoria Australia

 

Temperate regions of the world, such as southern Australia, often experience increased health burden from respiratory pathogens during winter. The ability to forecast short-term trends in cases of these pathogens is of significant interest to public health. Across the 2024 southern hemisphere winter period, the Australia–Aotearoa Consortium for Epidemic Forecasting and Analytics (ACEFA) ran a pilot respiratory virus forecasting initiative in collaboration with the Victorian Department of Health. Each week from the 9th of May 2024 through to 12th September 2024, the consortium solicited 28-day forecasts of daily case incidence for influenza, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) from multiple research groups. Four component model forecasts were contributed by three different research groups, with a fourth group utilising the component forecasts to generate ensemble forecasts (making a total of six models, four component models and two ensembles). The pilot programme confirmed the feasibility of a multi-pathogen collaborative forecasting hub in the Australia setting. A statistical performance evaluation of contributing forecasts against the observed case data found that performance varied by pathogen and epidemic phase, and the two ensemble models were frequently the top performing models.

Cite

@unpublished{winterforecasting,
  author = {Alec S Henderson and Robert Moss and Adeshina I Adekunle and Henry Ye and Mitchell O’Hara-Wild and Oliver Eales and Katharine L Senior and Ruarai Tobin and Saras M Windecker and Nick Golding and Ellie Robinson and Janet Strachan and Rob J Hyndman and Peter Dawson and James M. McCaw and Emma S McBryde and Freya M Shearer},
  doi    = {10.64898/2026.05.18.26353544},
  title  = {Winter forecasting of respiratory viruses in Victoria Australia},
  year   = {2026}
}