Even the best models of infectious disease transmission struggle to give accurate forecasts at time scales greater than 3-4 weeks due to unpredictable drivers like changing policy environments, behavior change, development of new control measures, and stochastic events. However, policy decisions around the course of infectious diseases, particularly emerging and seasonal infections, often require projections in the time frame of months. The goal of long-term projections is to compare outbreak trajectories under different scenarios, as opposed to offering a specific, unconditional estimate of what “will” happen. As such, long-term projections can guide longer-term decision-making while short-term forecasts are more useful for situational awareness and guiding immediate response.

We have specified a set of scenarios and target outcomes to allow alignment of model projections for collective insights. Scenarios have been designed in consultation with academic modeling teams and government agencies (e.g., CDC).

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