ABOUT THE MODEL

This is a dynamic model that shows the correlation between the health-related policies implemented by the Government in response to COVID-19 outbreak in Burnie, Tasmania, and the policies’ impact on the Economic activity of the area.

 ASSUMPTIONS

The increase in the number of COVID-19 cases is directly proportional to the increase in the Government policies in the infected region. The Government policies negatively impact the economy of Burnie, Tasmania.

INTERESTING INSIGHTS

1. When the borders are closed by the government, the economy is severely affected by the decrease of revenue generated by the Civil aviation/Migration rate. As the number of COVID-19 cases increase, the number of people allowed to enter Australian borders will also decrease by the government. 

2. The Economic activity sharply increases and stays in uniformity. 

3. The death rate drastically decreased as we increased test rate by 90%.

This Model was developed from the SEIR model (Susceptible, Enposed, Infected, Recovered). It was designed to explore relationships between the government policies regarding the COVID-19 and its impact upon the economy as well as well-being of residents. 

Assumptions:

Government policies will be triggered when reported COVID-19 case are 10 or less;

Government Policies affect the economy and the COV-19 infection negatively at the same time;

Government Policies can be divided as 4 categories, which are Social Distancing, Business Restrictions, Lock Down, Travel Ban, and Hygiene Level, and they represented strength of different aspects;

Parameters:

Policies like Social Distancing, Business Restrictions, Lock Down, Travel Ban all have different weights and caps, and they add up to 1 in total;

There are 4 cases on March 9th; 

Ro= 5.7  Ro is the reproduction number, here it means one person with COVID-19 can potentially transmit the coronavirus to 5 to 6 people;

Interesting Insights:

Economy will grow at the beginning few weeks then becoming stagnant for a very long time;

Exposed people are significant, which requires early policies intervention such as social distancing.

Model description: 

This model is designed to simulate the Covid-19 outbreak in Burnie, Tasmania by estimating several factors such as exposed population, infection rate, testing rate, recovery rate, death rate and immunity loss. The model also simulates the measures implemented by the government which will impact on the local infection and economy. 

Assumption:

Government policies will reduce the mobility of the population as well as the infection. In addition, economic activities in the tourism and hospitality industry will suffer negative influences from the government measures. However, essential businesses like supermarkets will benefit from the health policies on the contrary.

Variables:

Infection rate, recovery rate, death rate, testing rate are the variables to the cases of Covid-19. On the other hand, the number of cases is also a variable to the government policies, which directly influences the number of exposed. 

The GDP is dependent on the variables of economic activities. Nonetheless, the government’s lockdown measure has also become the variable to the economic activities. 

Interesting insights:

Government policies are effective to curb infection by reducing the number of exposed when the case number is greater than 10. The economy becomes stagnant when the case spikes up but it climbs up again when the number of cases is under control.