COVID-19 Simulator
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Coronavirus Disease 2019 Simulator (COVID-19 Simulator) is a tool to help policy makers decide how to respond to the novel coronavirus pandemic. The tool evaluates the impact of different social-distancing interventions (by varying their intensity and timing) on reduction in the spread of coronavirus in 50 states and District of Columbia. The information presented can help policymakers understand consequences such as the rate of new cases, potential strain on the healthcare system, and projected deaths. The COVID-19 Simulator combines infectious disease modeling and statistical modeling to simulate the trajectory of COVID-19 at the state level from March 15, 2020 to August 31, 2020 in the United States. Utilizing the most recent reported data for each state, the COVID-19 Simulator considers state-specific disease spread dynamics.
[Created by: Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Georgia Tech, and Boston Medical Center]
[From the user guide]
Using the Simulator
Follow these steps to use the tool:
1. Click the “State-level analysis” button, the “State-by-state Comparison” button, or the “National-level analysis” button.
a. The state-level analysis will allow you to view trends for one state under different intervention policies. This will give you the most detail for a specific state.
b. The state-by-state comparison analysis will allow you to view trends for multiple states at the same time, under different intervention policies.
c. The national-level analysis will allow you to view trends for the United States as a whole under different intervention policies.
2. Select the individual state or states to compare (for state-level or state-by-state comparison only).
This can be done using the map or drop-down menu. If state-by-state comparison is selected, you can click multiple states in the map or hold Ctrl (Windows) or Command (Mac) to select multiple states in the drop-down menu.
3. Choose intervention #1 and select a duration (2, 4, 8, 12 or 16 weeks).
Intervention #1 will start on the upcoming Sunday.
Please see full details on interventions below.
4. Choose intervention #2 and select a duration (2, 4, 8, 12, or 16 weeks).
Intervention #2 will start when intervention #1 ends. You can select the same intervention as intervention #1 if you wish to extend the time of intervention #1 beyond 16 weeks. If you chose current intervention or "lockdown" for the second intervention, it will automatically be followed by minimal restrictions for the remaining duration.
Please see full details on interventions and the scaling-down period below.
[After making changes, hit the 'Analyze strategy' button]
5. Scroll down to see results.
The definitions for the values shown in the figures are displayed in the grey boxes to the right. You can click and drag your mouse to zoom in on a plot, and then double click the plot to zoom out again. The scale and values shown on the plots in the state-by-state comparison analysis can be modified with switches below the plots—please click the info button by each plot for more details on what these switches do.
[You can just hover over the plots to see projections for different days]
Intervention Options
From least intense to most intense, the choices of interventions are:
- Minimal Restrictions : There is no intervention in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19. However, there is an assumed level of learned social awareness (handwashing, avoid close contact when sick, etc.) that is included in the model. Please see the methodology for more details.
- Current intervention : For most states this is a stay at home order, where people are advised to stay at home except for essential needs such as grocery shopping and picking up prescriptions. The New York Times provides a list of the current interventions in each state.
- Lockdown : There is a complete ban on travel, including cancelling flights and closing inter-state and local travel, as has been done in some countries such as Italy, China, and India. Exceptions are made for essential needs such as grocery shopping and picking up prescriptions.
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With many states getting ready to ease restrictions, I really hope these projections are wrong.
I played around with some of the Midwestern states that don't have large outbreaks yet, and the differences between easing restrictions or not are stark, leveling out in August at either a few hundred deaths by maintaining current intervention, or skyrocketing to over 10,000 deaths by going to minimal restrictions within the next 2 weeks.
Like I said, I hope these projections are wrong.
I, too, hope that this overestimates the numbers
The restrictions will be lifted too soon because of the immense pressure to do so. We really are not safe until we have a cure and I doubt we will see that during 2020. My hope is that most people continue to take precautions when bans are lifted. Hard to say if they will — I think a lot of people have 'received the memo' that this is highly contagious and serious. If not, I am afraid we will see a resurgence of the pandemic.
I don't know. What's too soon? The irony, maybe, is that we have shut non-essential businesses down, in the purported effort to decrease contacts. Sounds good. Restaurants are all closed, people are cooking and eating at home, which has increased traffic at the grocery stores. Literally packed, from open to close. Result? We aren't really distancing. We've just changed where we are coming into contact with others, and have actually funneled the contact and increased the flow at the same time.
The damn hospital is empty, nurses and doctors are furloughed, we are going broke, all in the name of decreasing contact with others. Which, again, is a joke in my area. Can't get your hair cut, because there might be a group of 10 people, but I can go into the stores, where there are hundreds of people at any given moment, and thousands have been during the day. I'm positive the girl that cuts my hair keeps her place cleaner than the grocery store. Damn sure easier to manage a barber chair than it is isle after isle of groceries.
To me 'too soon' is opening up areas due to economic pressure and enabling infections to again increase. Governors are naturally going to open up their state economies as soon as they have a justifiable reason to do so. The likelihood that they jump the gun, IMO, is higher than not.
I've mostly stayed away, but the few times that I have been to a store I saw people keeping their distance, even cringing away from others as they passed them in the aisles.
It might not be like that all of the time, though. I might have just gotten lucky. I know a lot of people around the country aren't taking this as seriously as they should.
That correlates with my experiences.
Packed is not the case in California. Packed is what it was at the start of every month, weighed down shopping carts, and on the day that the 'run' on shopping happened. People were buying up nearly everything. That day was the day the shelves ran bare. And mostly, are still bare today as people who do come in throughout the days and early closing hours get their rationed health care items or just take as many unmarked rations as they want.
What is interesting even at area Walmarts is the social distancing "X" or "I" symbols pervasive on the outsides of stores and insides moving toward check out lanes. Everywhere. Governor Newsom mandates these symbols to be present as a consequence of being open.
Specifically, inside buildings where people gather. And mostly, outside where stores decide a system of how many people can be allowed in at a time. Interestingly, we enter one door and go out another apart from it . There is an attendant manning each door seperately, communicating counts of "in" - "out."
Yes, some people are choosing (neglecting) to wear any mask (LA its mandatory), and it is allowed so far. Most of us are wearing mask and getting quite good at it.
Also, most stores have "huge" containers of sanitizer free for using or sanitizing wipers strategically spaced on entry and exit and by certain check out registers.
I feel good about it overall.
I don't want anyone to be cavalier in their approach. We are all asked to use common sense during this time. Common sense tells me the highest chance to get the disease is found at the place with the most people. Right now, that is the grocery store. Whether or not there has been a noticeable increase in traffic at your local stores, I'd venture a guess that the grocery store has not seen decline in traffic. People gotta eat. Convenience stores are probably still operating at full.
Opening up is not the issue. Abandoning sensible precautions is. If I can avoid contracting the disease, while visiting the market, where there are hundreds of people, it follows that I can also avoid it while visiting the salon, where there may be 10. In other words, if the markets can operate at a high level, while not contributing to the spread, I can't see a good justification for assuming opening other businesses would be catastrophic. Unless one assumes that everyone will just abandon safe practices.
I'm sure it depends on where one is. Wal-Mart killed the family stores in my area, so it is almost the only place you can go for groceries in a 45 mile radius. (there are some small stores in a couple of small towns, but in all honesty, they are not as clean. If I drive, I'm going to at least go to a clean store)
Wal-Mart will do the curbside pick-up, which is nice. We take advantage of that, and I haven't been inside since early March. It's amazing to see the number of people filing in and out of the store though. I don't recall seeing the lot as full on a consistent basis as it has been for the past 1.5 months.
Strictly an observation of the situation in my area. Distancing? Only to the extent that we can't visit less crowded, non-essential businesses.
Essential services cannot be stopped. There is simply no choice but to allow food and supply production and distribution to continue.
Grocery stores in my area are taking very good precautions. They are limiting the number of customers in the store, encouraging social distancing, wearing masks, eliminating all items other the pre-packaged, using barriers to mitigate spread, disinfecting carts, etc.
Well I am not here to claim the government is doing a perfectly precise job. Certainly one can improve from the hammer in effect to something more surgical. Salons certainly could open with restrictions and precautions. Likely that will happen.
My comment was that the government is likely to succumb to pressure and open things up before they ensure the opened areas have the proper mechanisms in place to safely conduct operations. Major pressure for opening coupled with the complexity (and time required) to manage the opening safely results, in my mind, in opening things too soon.
No, I understand what you are saying, which is why I said that opening is not the issue, abandoning sensible precaution is. It's just rather funny that so many think that a grocery store, Wal-Mart for instance, that sees 5000-20000 people a week (depending on location) has the proper mechanisms to safely conduct operations, but a salon that may see 200 people a week would not.
I can't say the same. Went into a county building this morning. Had my temp taken before being allowed entry. First and only thing I've seen remotely close to precautionary measures. Wal-Mart? Forget it. I'd rather more precautions be taken. But, I cannot ignore the fact that hardly anyone is taking any precautions in my area, and we aren't experiencing the catastrophic results that allegedly follow said behavior.
My state continues to go up in confirmed cases. Now over 6,800. It seems like a week ago we were at 2,700.
My governor wants the casinos open by Memorial Day.
I am afraid people will not have learned anything, just look at the beaches people flocked to when they had a chance.
There doesn't seem to be much difference in results between the current intervention and lockdown.
It's an interesting widget, but I hope nobody is actually getting ready to make policy based on this thing.