EnerPol: COVID-19 CH Simulation
On 16 March 2020, the Swiss government declared an “extraordinary situation” over COVID-19, and promoted social distancing measures to manage the spread of COVID-19. COVID-19 is caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and is a highly transmittable viral infection that is characterised by rapid human-to-human transmission.
Using Download EnerPol (PDF, 6 MB), our previously developed agent-based, artificial intelligence, simulation platform coupled with ‘Big Data,’ we have predicted the Download evolution and containment of COVID-19 (PDF, 2.4 MB) in Switzerland from 22 February 2020 to 18 April 2020. While the EnerPol platform covers all of Europe, USA, Japan, South Korea and sub Saharan Africa, and different sectors (including energy, mobility, urban development, and finance), the present simulation covers the entire Swiss population (8.57 million people), the entire Swiss public and private transport network, and the known epidemiology of the COVID-19 virus.
Our predictions estimate that between 22 February 2020 and 11 April 2020, there will be 83’300 COVID-19 cases (figure 1, left), and 720 deaths (figure 2, below). The timely governmental intervention has saved thousands of lives, as in the absence of intervention, 42.7%, compared to 1%, of the Swiss population would have been infected by 25 April 2020.
Nevertheless, as by 19 April 2020, there will still remain a substantial number of infected individuals in the population, who could re-trigger a second massive spread of COVID-19, the most effective relaxation of the current ‘lockdown’ should be carefully assessed.