Periodicity in New York State COVID-19 Hospitalizations Leveraged from the Variable Bandpass Periodic Block Bootstrap

Abstract: The outbreak of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which led to an unprecedented global pandemic, has underscored the critical importance of understanding seasonal patterns. This knowledge is fundamental for decision-making in healthcare and public health domains. Investigating the presence, intensity, and precise nature of seasonal trends, as well as these temporal patterns, is essential for forecasting future occurrences, planning interventions, and making informed decisions based on the evolution of events over time. This study employs the Variable Bandpass Periodic Block Bootstrap (VBPBB) to separate and analyze different periodic components by frequency in time series data, focusing on annually correlated (PC) principal components. Bootstrapping, a method used to estimate statistical sampling distributions through random sampling with replacement, is particularly useful in this context. Specifically, block bootstrapping, a model-independent resampling method suitable for time series data, is utilized. Its extensions are aimed at preserving the correlation structures inherent in PC processes. The VBPBB applies a bandpass filter to isolate the relevant PC frequency, thereby minimizing contamination from extraneous frequencies and noise. This approach significantly narrows the confidence intervals, enhancing the precision of estimated sampling distributions for the investigated periodic characteristics. Furthermore, we compared the outcomes of block bootstrapping for periodically correlated time series with VBPBB against those from more traditional bootstrapping methods. Our analysis shows VBPBB provides strong evidence of the existence of an annual seasonal PC pattern in hospitalization rates not detectible by other methods, providing timing and confidence intervals for their impact.