A sample model for class discussion modeling COVID-19 outbreaks and responses from government with the effect on the local economy.  Govt policy is dependent on reported COVID-19 cases, which in turn depend on testing rates less those who recover

Based on this particular model created by Lutfi Andriyanto and Aulia Nur Fajriyah: https://insightmaker.com/insight/2wxxIeiWJsHNFGNH6cf6ke/SEIR

Updated by (Kelompok 2):

Daffa Muhammad Romero 20/456363/TK/50493

Iskan Mustamir 20/456367/TK/50497

Tasya Nafisah Kamal 20/460569/TK/51158

Hervi Nur Rahmadien 20/463601/TK/51593

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

The SEIRS(D) model for the purpose of experimenting with the phenomena of viral spread. I use it for COVID-19 simulation.

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.

Description:

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

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

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.

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.

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%.

Overview:

The COVID-19 Outbreak in Burnie Tasmania shows the process of COVID-19 outbreak, the impacts of government policy on both the COVID-19 outbreak and the GDP growth in Burnie.

Assumptions:

We set some variables at fix rates, including the immunity loss rate, recovery rate, death rate, infection rate and case impact rate, as they usually depend on the individual health conditions and social activities.

It should be noticed that we set the rate of recovery, which is 0.7, is higher than that of immunity loss rate, which is 0.5, so, the number of susceptible could be reduced over time.

Adjustments: (please compare the numbers at week 52)

Step 1: Set all the variables at minimum values and simulate

results: Number of Infected – 135; Recovered – 218; Cases – 597; Death – 18,175; GDP – 10,879.

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

results: Number of Infected – 166 (up); Recovered – 249 (up); Cases – 554 (down); Death – 18,077 (down); GDP – 824 (down).

So, the increase of health policy, quarantine and travel restriction will help increase recovery, decrease confirmed cases, decrease death, but also decrease GDP.

Step 3: Increase the variables of Testing Rate to 0.4, others keep the same as step 2, and simulate

results: Number of Infected – 152 (down); Recovered – 243 (down); Cases – 1022 (up); Death – 17,625 (down); GDP – 824 (same).

So, the increase of testing rate will help to increase the confirmed cases.

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

results: Number of Infected – 152 (same); Recovered – 243 (same); Cases – 1022 (same); Death – 17,625 (same); GDP – 6,632 (up).

So, the increase of GDP growth rate and tourism growth rate will helps to improve the GDP in Burnie.

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.

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.

The model is built to demonstrates how Burnie Tasmania can deal with a new COVID-19 outbreaks, taking government policies and economic effects into account.