SimCOVID: An Open-Source Simulink-Based Program for Simulating the COVID-19 Epidemic

Ismael Khorshed Abdulrahman

Total or partial lockdown, social distancing, and stay-athome control steps can influence the spread of the virus and flatten the curve earlier if these steps were applied in advance. In the Simulink model, we can represent all these control measures by a step function and simulate the system under these conditions. These controls affect the infection rate giving a decline in the beta function. On the other hand, developing a vaccine or involving any other ways to recover or slow down the disease (such as providing the hospitals with all the necessary ventilators) affect the recovery-rate parameter by increasing this value. As a result, the reproduction ratio reduces by any change in these two parameters. It is also easy in Simulink to see the impact of a delay in response on the curve. This can be achieved by adding a delay block to the infection function. However, more details about the model are needed for this problem.