Polymarket Forecast On Covid-19 2021

The following post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga.

The US vaccination rates are beginning to rise, albeit modestly, but the country is still standing at a dire infection rate because only 51% of the US population are fully vaccinated. The highly infectious Delta variant has driven cases from a 7-day average of 13,500 daily cases in early June to 125,894 daily cases on August 12, 2021.

An internal C document from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the Delta variant could make people sicker, based on research from Singapore and Scotland. Although Covid 19 cases are on the rise, all projections rely on moving targets such as mask-wearing and vaccination behavior. As such, there is no accurate forecast, even on a relatively short time scale.

The Covid-19 surge in the USA is currently fueled by the Delta variant, and Polymarket forecasters intend to predict the pattern of the Covid-19 rate in the US throughout the pandemic. According to new projections released by a consortium of researchers working with the CDC, we might experience synergetic effects of people becoming less cautious due to the modestly increasing vaccination rates. However, the Delta variant is still a cause for concern.

According to these projections, if the US population reaches 70% of full vaccination and the Delta variant has a transmission rate of 60%, then the peak in mid-October would have about 60,000 new cases and 850 deaths each day. However, on August 12th, the daily average was 125,894 and the number seems to be on the rise. This could mean that by the peak in mid-October, we could witness the worst-case scenario, which shows about 240,000 people getting infected and 4000 people dying every day. However, this is simply a probability, and it is clouded with uncertainty because changes in behavior that were not predicted and big shifts in vaccination could significantly change the results of these projections.

Overall, the major projection shows a steady increase to the peak in October, followed by a steady slope downwards. This is because the delta variant is prone to super spreading in under-vaccinated communities, but changes in public policy and behavior can still move the dial to milder outcomes.

Patrick Collison (@patrickc), CEO of Stripe, recently posted a tweet that stirred numerous opinions based on the Polymarket probabilities. In his tweet, Patrick said,

“The US dropped below 100,000 COVID-19 cases per day in February. Over the past week, the odds (on Polymarket) of exceeding that threshold again before the end of the year went from 50% to 75%.”

His tweet was based on a market on Polymarket where forecasters predicted whether or not the US would break 100,000 new daily Covid-19 cases before 2022. The market has been resolved, and indeed, there have been over 100,000 daily Covid 19 cases before the end of the year. 
There is another market on the platform on whether or not there will be more than 200,000 Covid-19 cases by October. Polymarket traders are currently pricing a 30% probability that the US will reach the 200,000 case threshold.

What is Polymarket?

Polymarket is an information markets platform built on the blockchain that allows users to track market-based probabilities of a variety of future events. Topics range from coronavirus, politics, current events, and more.

Probabilities are generated as Polymarket users trade on what they believe will happen. Using the wisdom of the crowd, a market-based forecast is created, which can help give the average person insight into what to expect in the future.

Image by Photocurry from Pixabay

The preceding post was written and/or published as a collaboration between Benzinga’s in-house sponsored content team and a financial partner of Benzinga. Although the piece is not and should not be construed as editorial content, the sponsored content team works to ensure that any and all information contained within is true and accurate to the best of their knowledge and research. This content is for informational purposes only and not intended to be investing advice.