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.

If no attempt is made to eradicate SARS-CoV-2 it will eventually become endemic, ineradicable, at a high never-ending cost to world in terms of economic growth, human health and lives. The current strategy adopted by most governments is to impose  restrictive measures when the virus threatens to overwhelm hospital services and to relax these restrictions as this danger recedes. This is short-sighted. It cannot eliminate the highly infectious delta variant, which has an estimated R0-value of between 6 & 9. Periodic lockdowns will be hard to avoid in the future.

However, eradication is possible, herd immunity can be achieved quickly worldwide, reducing the R0 permanently to below 1, which will lead to the disappearance of the virus. Critical in achieving this is Ivermectin, a medicine that is cheap,  readily available and can be manufactured by most countries. A recent meta study has shown that Ivermectin, prophylactically employed, can prevent infection with the virus  by 86 % on average – very similar to the efficacy of vaccines. Eradication will require employment of all the instruments shown in the graph: future generations do not have to live with this plague. 

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.