MARKOVIAN RANDOM WALK MODELING AND VISUALIZATION OF THE EPIDEMIC SPREAD OF COVID-19

Haluk Akay; George Barbastathis

The primary aim of this work was to understand why different regions of the world experience the pandemic spread of CoVID-19 in different ways. By recurrent testing of the population, infected individuals can be identified and quarantined, effectively preventing them from spreading the disease any further. It was observed that through increased rates of testing, an increasing percentage of the population could be saved from experiencing CoVID-19 altogether, to a point where if 40% of the population could be tested daily, any disease having a similar reproduction number would not be able to spread at all. This suggests an opportunity for preventing future viral outbreaks if testing can become a routine procedure that responsible members of the population carry out on themselves and self-report. It was also observed that through increased rates of testing, the peak of confirmed cases could be lowered, relieving the toll of an epidemic on the supply chain, and indirectly human wellbeing.