Pandemic Simulator

To demonstrate the challenge of implementing healthcare policy during a pandemic, especially in balancing both public health and the economy

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Inspiration

We were appalled by the (often) terrible decisions made by policymakers during the pandemic, so we decided to create a virus simulation where politicians can see the effects of their decisions and policies on their constituents.

What it does

Game that simulates the spread of COVID-19 throughout a population. Objective: Don't kill too many people or destroy the economy.

How we built it

We used the JavaFX framework, principles of OOP, and the SIRD model to design a simple MVC simulation for a pandemic.

Challenges we ran into

Designing a good, usable UI will never not be a challenge. Additionally, we had to make a lot of assumptions and simplifications in our models. We ignored incubation periods, death by natural causes, made the movement of people between nodes random, assumed equal susceptibility to the disease throughout the population

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

Charles: The interface is smooth, many nodes can be rendered

Amy: This was my first time building a desktop app with OOP from scratch and I'm glad I could make it function within two days, with a decent model.

Jing Kai and Siyang: We learnt more about epidemiology and how to model disease spread and an in-game economy, something we have no experience with in the past. Additionally, we're proud that we could understand and implement the SIRD compartmentalized model.

What We learned

How to integrate mathematical models into OOP programs.

What are some epidemiological models to model disease spread

Setting up the parameters and playing the video game made us realize that there are a lot of nuances in determining public health policy, and simulations can help balance the consequences by predicting outcomes.

What's next for Pandemic Simulator

  1. Make the economic model more complicated, incorporating government spending, unemployment rate, taxes, and so on to more accurately capture real GDP of a country
  2. Optimize the traveling of people between different types of nodes + population within each node to more accurately reflect flow of populations in real life, and add more types of nodes as well.
  3. Further enhance our model by taking into account the availability of resources in hospitals and public health service.
  4. Include more options for the user (politician) that would be present in real-life, including but not limited to:
    • Handing out stimulus checks
    • Implement education policies + increase public awareness on safe behavior during pandemic
    • Introduce new medical personnel into the town
    • Invest in vaccine development
    • Enforce social distancing
  5. Implement a "Treasury" for the user that grows as the government collects taxes, and where the money can be used to pay for the options listed above All in all, just various additions that would make our game + model more realistic and useful for policy makers and their constituents.

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