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mrc-ide / covid-sim

This is the COVID-19 CovidSim microsimulation model developed by the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis hosted at Imperial College, London.
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Simulate more realistic social interactions #240

Open phelps-sg opened 4 years ago

phelps-sg commented 4 years ago

The model currently uses a spatial mixing model, which does not necessarily capture the scale-free degree-distribution inherent in empirical social networks. It might be relevant to explicitly model social networks, so that people are more likely to interact with a social circle and wider familiar who are not co-resident. The modeler could choose parameters of a random graph generator that were calibrated against empirical networks. Incorporating a scale-free social network could capture the effect of "super-spreaders" who could be very influential on the course of an epidemic (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1578276/).

Socializing in bars, restaurants and night-clubs could also be explicitly simulated, as transmission could be much higher in these locations (https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article). The number, size and locations of these businesses could be very relevant factors.

robscovell-ts commented 4 years ago

This makes sense from a heuristic/empirical point of view. In New Zealand, analysis of the most significant clusters showed that they were related to social gatherings in bars, weddings etc.