Abstract
Abstract. Geography has long sought to explain spatial relationships between social and physical processes, including the spread of infectious diseases, within the context of modelling human-environment interactions. The spread of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and its devastating effects on human activity and welfare, represent but examples of such complex human-environment interactions. In this paper, we discuss the value of agent-based models for simulating the spread of the COVID-19 virus to support decision-making with regards to non-pharmaceutical interventions, e.g., lock-down. We also develop a prototype agent-based model using a minimal set of rules regarding patterns of human mobility within a hypothetical town, and couple that with an epidemiological model of infectious disease spread. The coupled model is used to: (a) create synthetic trajectories corresponding to daily and weekly activities postulated between a set of predefined points of interest (e.g., home, work), and (b) simulate new infections at contact points and their subsequent effects on the spread of the disease. We finally use the model simulations as a means of evaluating decisions regarding the number and type of activities to be limited during a planned lockdown in a COVID-19 pandemic context.
Highlights
The extent and intensity of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, enhanced by the interconnectedness of the population due to urbanization and globalization, demonstrated the complexity of the effects of a pandemic in all areas of human life and activities
We advocate the use of simulation experiments within an interdisciplinary agent-based modelling framework, and the evaluation of scenarios related to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic for guiding non-pharmaceutical interventions that can be spatially and temporally focused
We develop a prototype agent-based model using a minimal set of rules regarding patterns of human mobility within a synthetically sketched town, and couple that model with an epidemiological model of infectious disease spread
Summary
The extent and intensity of the recent COVID-19 pandemic, enhanced by the interconnectedness of the population due to urbanization and globalization, demonstrated the complexity of the effects of a pandemic in all areas of human life and activities. We advocate the use of simulation experiments within an interdisciplinary agent-based modelling framework, and the evaluation of scenarios related to the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic for guiding non-pharmaceutical interventions that can be spatially and temporally focused. Such decisions may include when a lockdown should be imposed or lifted, what elements of social / economic life and related activities should be restricted or enhanced, in what chronological order, and where geographically, all with a view to their potential impact on public health and the economy. We use model simulations to illustrate the evaluation of alternative decisions about the number and type of activities to be limited during a planned lockdown in the COVID-19 pandemic context
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