Modeling Spread of COVID-19 in Pakistan and Policy Interventions to Mitigate its Spread

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

Ijaz Yusuf ¹

Kishmala Ijaz ²

¹ Department of Operations and Supply Chain, Dr. Hasan Murad School of Management, University of Management and Technology, Lahore, Pakistan.

² Department of General Surgery, PAK Emirates Military Hospital Rawalpindi, Pakistan.

10.22067/jstinp.2022.78114.1018

Abstract

COVID-19 has been a pandemic, a communicable disease that presented as atypical pneumonia with an unclear clinical spectrum. The first case in Pakistan was reported on February 26, 2020. Sind provincial government showed seriousness in initiating the containment measures. The outbreak progression was multiplying day by day. Fear and spread were dominating the areas increasing the number of detected infections and cumulative deaths. The demand for serious containment measures was increasing and highlighting the issues regarding public health capacity. This paper aims the development an epidemic model using the system dynamic architecture. The research aims to unveil the underlying structure that caused the spread of this contagious disease and identify the containment measures as policy levers to mitigate the spread of this deadly novel corona. Experimentation with the model highlighted that the model performed better in replicating the detected infections and cumulative deaths than the recovered people. Simulation results for varied simulation lengths under the combination of policy levers exactly traced the future trajectory of infected and dead people. Horrible numbers of future predictions demanded seriousness from the public and the government to mitigate its emerging outbreak with rational and plausible policies.

Keywords

COVID-19

Epidemic model

System dynamics

Policy design

Pakistan

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