Prediction of SARS-CoV-2 infection with a Symptoms-Based model to aid public health decision making in Latin America and other low and middle income settings

•Early non-pharmacological interventions are necessary limit the spread of COVID-19.•In low to middle-income countries, there are limited resources to face the pandemic.•Symptoms (i.e. anosmia) can be used to apply early strategies in suspicious cases.•Logistic regression provides interpretability in prediction analysis.•Machine learning analysis aids prediction because of its capacity of data synthesis.