Overview:

Overall, this analysis showed a COVID-19 outbreak in Burnie, the government policies to curtail that, and some of the impacts it is having on the Burnie economy.

Variables

The simulation made use of the variables such as; Covid-19: (1): Infection rate. (2): Recovery rate. (3): Death rate. (4): Immunity loss rate etc. 

Assumptions:

From the model, it is apparent that government health policies directly affect the economic output of Burnie. A better health policy has proven to have a better economic condition for Burnie and verse versa.

In the COVID-19 model, some variables are set at fixed rates, including the immunity loss rate, recovery rate, death rate, infection rate, and case impact rate, as this is normally influenced by the individual health conditions and social activities.

Moving forward, we decided to set the recovery rate to 0.7, which is a rate above the immunity loss rate of 0.5, so, the number of susceptible could be diminished over time.

Step 1: Try to set all value variables at their lowest point and then stimulate. 

 

Outcome: the number of those Infected are– 135; Recovered – 218; Cases – 597; Death – 18,175; GDP – 10,879.

Step 2: Try to increase the variables of Health Policy, Quarantine, and Travel Restriction to 0.03, others keep the same as step 1, and simulate

Outcome: The number of those Infected – 166 (up); Recovered – 249 (up); Cases – 554 (down); Death – 18,077 (down); GDP – 824 (down).

With this analysis, it is obvious that the increase of health policy, quarantine, and travel restriction will assist in increase recovery rate, a decrease in confirmed cases, a reduction in death cases or fatality rate, but a decrease in Burnie GDP.

Step 3: Enlarge the Testing Rate to 0.4, variable, others, maintain the same as step 2, and simulate

Outcome: It can be seen that the number of Infected is down to – 152; those recovered down to – 243; overall cases up to – 1022; those that died down to–17,625; while the GDP remains – 824.

In this step, it is apparent that the increase of testing rate will assist to increase the confirmed cases.

Step 4: Try to change the GDP Growth Rate to 0.14, then Tourism Growth Rate to 0.02, others keep the same as step 3, and then simulate the model

Outcome: what happens is that the Infected number – 152 remains the same; Recovered rate– 243 the same; Number of Cases – 1022 (same); Death – 17,625 (same); but the GDP goes up to– 6,632. 

This final step made it obvious that the increase of GDP growth rate and tourism growth rate will help to improve the overall GDP performance of Burnie's economy.

INTRODUCTION

COVID-19

Coronavirus which was named COVID-19 is a respiratory disease which affects the lungs of the infected person and thus making such people vulnerable to other diseases such as pneumonia. It was first discovered in Wuhan China in December 2019 and since then has spread across the world affecting more than 40 million people from which over one million have died.

In the early discovery of the COVID-19, there were measures that were put in place with the help World Health Organization (WHO). They recommended a social distance of 1.5 meters to 2 meters to curb the spread since the scientist warned that COVID-19 can be carried in the droplets when someone breathes or cough. Another measure which was advised by WHO was wearing of mask, especially when people are in group. Wearing of mask would ensure that someone’s droplets do not leave their mouth or nose when they breathe or cough. It also help one from breathing in the virus which believed to be contagious and airborne.

The World Health Organization also advised on washing of the hand and avoiding frequent touching of the face. People mostly use their hand to touch surfaces which mad their hand the greatest harbor of the disease. Therefore, washing hands with soap will kill and wash away the virus from the hands. Avoiding touching of face also will prevent people from contracting the disease since the virus is believed to enter the body through openings such as eye, nose and mouth.

Another measure as a precaution from contracting the disease was to avoid hand shaking, hugging, kissing and any other thing which would bring people together. These were measures put to ensure that COVID-19 do not move from one person to another because of its airborne nature and the fact that it can be carried from the mouth or nose droplets.

Healthcare workers, in most of the countries, were provided with Personal Protective Equipment (PPEs) which helped them to protect themselves from contracting the virus. Healthcare workers were at the forefront in combating the disease since they were the people receiving the sick, including the ones with the virus. This exposed them to COVID-19 more than anyone hence more care was needed for them. Their PPEs comprised of white overall covering the whole body from head to toes. It also includes face mask and googles worn to prevent anything getting in their eyes. Their hands also were covered with gloves which were removed occasionally to avoid concentration of the virus on one glove.

COVID-19 affected many economies across the world as it greatly affected the human economic activities across the world. Due to the nature and how it spread, COVID-19 lead many countries to lockdown the country as we know it. Travelling was stopped as many countries feared the surge of the virus due to many people travelling form the countries which are already greatly affected. Another reason which travelling was hampered was due to the fact that the virus could spread among the travelers in an airplane. There were no proper measures to ensure social distance in the airplane and many people feared travelling from fear of contracting the disease.

This greatly affected the economy of many countries including great economies like USA. Tourism industry was the one affected the most as many country mostly depend on foreign travelers as their tourist. Many countries do not have proper domestic tourism structure and therefore depend on visitors who travels from foreign countries. Such countries have their economies greatly affected since the earnings from tourism either gone down or was not there at all.

Apart from locking down the country from foreigners, many major cities across the world were under lockdown. This means that even the citizens of the country were neither allowed in or out of the city. This restricted movement of people affecting greatly the human economic activities as many businesses were closed down especially transport businesses. The movement of goods from one places to another was affected making business difficult to carry out. Many people who dealt in perishable agricultural products count losses as their farm produced were destroyed because of lack of wider market. Some countries banned some businesses such as importing second hand clothes since it was believed that they could harbor the virus. Most of the meeting places such as sporting events and pubs were closed down affecting greatly the people who were involved in such businesses.

Across the world, schools were closed. Schools contain students in large numbers which could affect many students across the world. Learning was temporary stopped as different countries were finding ways of curbing the virus.

Scientist are busy like bees across the world to find the vaccine for the diseases that have ravage many countries and above all, they are trying to find the cure. Many countries have carried out their trial of vaccines with the hope to find an effective vaccine for the virus.

Meanwhile it is necessary to find ways by which the virus can be controlled so that it doesn’t spread to a point where it come out of control. Some of the measures put by the WHO has been highlighted above, but these measures need to be studied to ensure that measures which are more effective are affected at great heights. I therefore, have created a model in Insight Maker to check how these measures prove their effectiveness over time.

Model di samping adalah model SEIR yang telah dimodifikasi sehingga dapat digunakan untuk menyimulasikan perkembangan penyebaran COVID-19.

This model shows the COVID-19 outbreaks in Burnie and the Government intervention to alleviate the crisis and also how is the intervention affect the economy.

This model is comparing healthy and sick residents in Burnie, Tasmania after the Covid-19 Outbreak in 2020. It will also show how the Burnie economy is effected by the disease, how the Government Health Policies are implemented and how they are enforced.

This model is based on the SIR, Susceptible, Infection, Recovery (or Removed) These are the three possible states related to the members of the Burnie population when a contagious decease spreads.

The Government/Government Health Policy, played a big part in the successful decrease in Covid-19 infections. The Government enforced the following.
- No travel (interstate or international)
- Isolation within the residents homes
- Social distancing by 1.5m
- Quarantine
- Non essential companies to be temporarily closed
- Limitations on public gatherings
- And limits on time and kilometers aloud to travel from ones home within a local community

This resulted in lower reported infection rates of Covid-19 and higher recovery rates.

In my opinion: When the first case was reported the Government could have been even faster to enforce these rules to decrease the fatality rates further for the Burnie, population.  

Assumption: Government policies were only triggered when 10 cases were recorded.
Also, more cases that had been recorded effected the economic growth during this time.

Interesting Findings: In the simulation it shows as the death rates increases towards the end of the week, the rate of testing goes down. You would think that the government would have enforced a higher testing rate over the duration of this time to decrease the number of infections, exposed which would increase the recovery rates faster and more efficiently.  

Figures have been determined by the population of Burnie being 19,380 at the time of assignment.

Introduction:

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.