An agent-based epidemic model REINA for COVID-19 to identify destructive policies

Jouni T Tuomisto; Juha Yrjölä; Mikko Kolehmainen; Juhani Bonsdorff; Jami Pekkanen; Tero Tikkanen

A particularly attractive opportunity for further development given the nature of agent-based modelling is to build increasingly realistic representations of both the population and various policy interactions. Currently the model assumes homogeneous mixing of the population contact network; in the next phase this should be improved to a more realistic model. Already existing empirical data (e.g., Mossong et al. 2008) makes it possible to model separately interactions between agents in various contexts such as workplace or education. Further work can be carried out to build a realistic household structure of population, possibly including occupational statistics. This would allow much more accurate modelling of family-level isolations and impacts of school closures. With a sufficiently detailed model of occupations the model should be able to address sector-specific restrictions such as mandating telecommuting in sectors where feasible or restaurant closures. Additionally, the agent-based approach is well adapted to still more realistic Tuomisto et al. REINA model and destructive policies 2020-04-08 page 24 / 29 . CC-BY 4.0 International license It is made available under a is the author/funder, who has granted medRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity.