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Combining predictive models with future change scenarios can produce credible forecasts of COVID-19 futures

Fig 7

Simulations of emerging variants.

a) Median model predictions (black) fit to the 7-day moving average of daily confirmed cases in Florida to Sept. 24^th 2021 (blue), given waning of immunity over 2.5 years. Confirmed case data from Sept. 24^th to Feb. 14^th 2022 is shown by the gray curve. Four scenarios of the emergence of a 4^th variant are shown: 2x transmissibility of the original variants, emerging on November 1^st (red, solid line), 1.5x transmissibility, emerging on November 1^st (blue, solid line), 2x transmissibility, emerging on December 1^st (red, dashed line), and 1.5x transmissibility, emerging on December 1^st (blue, dashed line). b) Simulations of a 5^th variant, emerging on Mar. 1^st 2022 (blue), May 1^st 2022 (red), July 1^st 2022 (green), and Sept. 1^st 2022 (magenta). Solid lines represent the case of a 5x increase in transmissibility compared to the original variant, while the dashed lines represent a 3.5x increase in transmissibility.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277521.g007