Effects of protection and illusion of protection in disease control : a simulation study

• Main Author: Tan, Jude Kai Yang
• Other Authors: XIAO Gaoxi
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Electrical and electronic engineering::Computer hardware, software and systems
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/149163
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Through human history, once in a generation pandemic had infected millions of people in almost every nation around the world, regardless of geographical size, hemisphere and demographic of people, taking away the lives of millions. Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) had declared COVID-19 as a worldwide pandemic in March 2020. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, governing bodies around the world have implemented different pandemic control measures to protect its own citizens against COVID-19. The most common control measure implemented is the wearing of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like facemasks. Even with such measures, the population may get complacent, thinking that such measures, especially the donning of facemasks, would massively decrease the probability of infection. Thus, they continue their daily lives as though there is no ongoing pandemic. This complacency may create a spike in infection and negate the efforts to control the pandemic. In this simulation study, we evaluate the effects of pandemic control measures and the effect of human factors on pandemic control measures through computer simulation, by varying pandemic control, virus parameters and human factor parameters.