Hi guys! I'm currently trying to forecast a product's demand for the upcoming months (March and April). I have data relating to this product's demand since January 1999. However, the COVID-19 pandemic greatly disrupted the time series' patterns for 2020 and 2021. How should I deal with data from March 2020 to around Jan 2022?

Should I completely discard it and only include data from Jan 1999 to Dec 2019, and then Jan 2022 onwards? I'm struggling to find any good articles on how predictive tasks are now being conducted. Are there papers that suggest particular "denoising" techniques for pandemic data?

Thank you!

Comments

DW_Dreamcatcher t1_j5hsbep wrote on January 23, 2023 at 2:21 AM

Try models that exclude it, include it, and try to compare potential variance 2022 onwards. You’re right that pandemic prediction is out of scope, but assessing variation and noise is a great way to show maturity to your company. :)

[deleted] t1_j5jpx47 wrote on January 23, 2023 at 2:29 PM

[deleted]

jpercivalhackworth t1_j5h3cvx wrote on January 22, 2023 at 11:27 PM

What makes you think that COVID is not going to impact the demand for your product?

Forsaken-Indication t1_j5hc9hz wrote on January 23, 2023 at 12:29 AM

OP said it did. And that after Jan 2022 they see a return to some sort of baseline.

Trying to predict the next global pandemic as part of a product forecasting model seems pretty out-of-scope.

jpercivalhackworth t1_j5ib03x wrote on January 23, 2023 at 4:48 AM

Implicit in OP’s question is the apparent assumption that COVID is not a factor in projected demand. If that assumption is not true, then they may need to use the last 3 years as their baseline rather than trying to work around them.

Forsaken-Indication t1_j5jniqa wrote on January 23, 2023 at 2:10 PM

Either you're trolling or you need to reread what they said bud. They know that 2020 and 2021 are anomalous due to covid. And, as is the case across most markets, 2022 is a "new normal" year. Yes, obviously covid continues to effect things, but no it doesn't make sense to try to force a model to use anomalous data from during the pandemic stage of the covid now that we're beyond that stage.

jpercivalhackworth t1_j5kfcw6 wrote on January 23, 2023 at 5:18 PM

You are reading a lot into OP's question that I'm not seeing. Yes, COVID is anomalous, no it's not clear that for the purposes of modeling demand for an unidentified product that it makes sense to disregard it, adjust it, or perform so other adjustment. Depending on the what demand is being modeled COVID is still a factor.

You would do well to reread what they actually wrote and what I wrote. Nowhere did I say that they should predict the next pandemic (cool if they could, but not relevant here). Considering that COVID deaths appear to be climbing in parts of the world and we don't know where the OP is modeling for, there are a lot of unknowns to address before a meaningful answer can be arrived at.