Description

The model shows Covid-19 situations in Burnie, Tasmania. Under such circumstances, how the state government deals with the pandemic and how economy changes will be illustrated. The relationship between government policy and economic activities under Covid-19 outbreaks will be explained through different variables.

Assumptions

Government policy negatively affects Covid-19 outbreaks and economic activities.

Covid-19 outbreaks also has negative effects on economic growth.

Parameters

There are several fixed and adjusted variables.

1.     COVID-19 Outbreaks

Fixed variables: infection rate, recovery rate

Adjusted variables: immunity loss rate

2.     Government Policy

Adjusted variables: lockdown, social distancing, testing, vaccination

3.     Economic impact

Fixed variables: tourism

Adjusted variables: economic growth rate

Interesting Insights

Tourism seems to be the most effective way to bring back economic growth in Tasmania, and it takes time to recover from Covid-19.

Government policies tend to have negative influences on economic growth.

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.

Here we have a basic SEIR model and we will investigate what changes would be appropriate for modelling the 2019 Coronavirus.

We add simple containment meassures that affect two paramenters, the Susceptible population and the rate to become infected.

The initial parametrization is based on the suggested current data. The initial population is set for Catalonia.

The questions that we want to answer in this kind of models are not the shape of the curves, that are almost known from the beginning, but, when this happens, and the amplitude of the shapes. This is crucial, since in the current circumstance implies the collapse of certain resources, not only healthcare.

The validation process hence becomes critical, and allows to estimate the different parameters of the model from the data we obtain. This simulation approach allows to obtain somethings that is crucial to make decisions, the causality. We can infer this from the assumptions that are implicit on the model, and from it we can make decisions to improve the system behavior.

Yes, simulation works with causality and Flows diagrams is one of the techniques we have to draw it graphically, but is not the only one. On https://sdlps.com/projects/documentation/1009 you can review soon the same model but represented in Specification and Description Language.

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.