Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak • Hacker News Board

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#41

Post by hyperpallium » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 4:24 AM UTC

pedrosorio wrote: post #25

Swizec wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's weird, I get many deaths in just a few iterations. What were you running on? You seem to have found a bug. Here's a video of when I run these: https://twitter.com/Swizec/status/1239599601537015808

Parent is probably referring to the "Covid19 with distancing" simulation. Some feedback: these are very simplistic simulations and obviously not aiming for accuracy but please consider changing the default 20% "reinfectability" parameter. All evidence and medical knowledge indicates that reports of reinfection are either: - issues with testing (false positives/negatives) - extremely rare https://www.snopes.com/fact-c…

It's scary enough without reinfection. Seems unlikely.

> the 30,000-letter genetic code of the virus changes by one letter every 15 days [from link]

But could be like the common cold and flu, with new strains each year - but more contagious and deadly. Even then, we could still have new vaccines each year, and better treatment methods.

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#42

Post by knzhou » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 5:37 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #6

Remember pandemic2 flash game? It was almost impossible to kill all humans without starting the infection from Madagascar. If you started from somewhere else Madagascar always had time to close the borders. Lo and behold: Madagascar is one of the few countries without infections in Global Cases tracker. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

And lo and behold, again: Madagascar has just closed their borders.

https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2020/03/14/world/africa/14re...

> "To prevent the outbreak entering in Madagascar, all flights connecting Madagascar to Europe are suspended for 30 days," Madagascar President Hery Rajaonarimampianina said in a statement.

> Madagascar, one of the world's poorest nations where malnutrition is rife and outbreaks of deadly diseases are common, will also suspend air links to the nearby islands of La Reunion and Mayotte, he said.

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#43

Post by olliej » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 5:52 AM UTC

I want to be able to tailor survival rate according to availability of hospital support - it seems like an obvious thing to include.

e.g. say that there are X hospital beds, and an X% survival rate for critical patients if they can get a bed.

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#44

Post by lostlogin » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 6:09 AM UTC

rtkwe wrote: post #37

nabla9 wrote: post #6

Remember pandemic2 flash game? It was almost impossible to kill all humans without starting the infection from Madagascar. If you started from somewhere else Madagascar always had time to close the borders. Lo and behold: Madagascar is one of the few countries without infections in Global Cases tracker. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

We're also getting another classic part of any Pandemic play through cruise ships forever circling the ocean looking for a place to dock. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cruise-transatlantic-coro...

My favourite cruise ship fiasco this week has been the newly imposed rule in New Zealand - they can’t dock, go away. So hours before the ban was imposed one docked and dumped all it’s passengers in the capital. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120298962/...

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#45

Post by and0rsk » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:06 AM UTC

We had a small demo to simulate pandemic outbreak at malls. The simulation was mostly for demonstration purposes to illustrate how distancing impacts spread, and potentially some ways to help mitigate it.

http://socialdistance.ai/

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#46

Post by minitoar » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 7:52 AM UTC

nabla9 wrote: post #6

Remember pandemic2 flash game? It was almost impossible to kill all humans without starting the infection from Madagascar. If you started from somewhere else Madagascar always had time to close the borders. Lo and behold: Madagascar is one of the few countries without infections in Global Cases tracker. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

https://pics.me.me/president-madagascar-a-man-in-brazil-is-c...

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#47

Post by paraboul » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

and0rsk wrote: post #45

We had a small demo to simulate pandemic outbreak at malls. The simulation was mostly for demonstration purposes to illustrate how distancing impacts spread, and potentially some ways to help mitigate it. http://socialdistance.ai/

Much less visual than yours though, I also made a tool to highlight the exponential effect of social distancing.

Exponential growth is often counter-intuitive and lot of people don't seem to get it.

https://www.spreadsim.com/

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#48

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 9:13 AM UTC

lostlogin wrote: post #44

rtkwe wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're also getting another classic part of any Pandemic play through cruise ships forever circling the ocean looking for a place to dock. https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/cruise-transatlantic-coro...

My favourite cruise ship fiasco this week has been the newly imposed rule in New Zealand - they can’t dock, go away. So hours before the ban was imposed one docked and dumped all it’s passengers in the capital. https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120298962/...

I got some stern comments that "laws should never apply retroactively" for saying this, but I still believe: all those border closings should apply immediately from the second they're announced, and all quarantine requirements for returning passengers should apply retroactively, from a day or two before they were announced.

Because the story is the same all over the world. A country announces it'll close the borders in 2 days. A day after the announcement, every citizen of that country that was in COVID-19 hotspot returns to their homeland. In some cases avoiding quarantine.

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#49

Post by ImaCake » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 11:18 AM UTC

muzani wrote: post #36

nabla9 wrote: post #6

Remember pandemic2 flash game? It was almost impossible to kill all humans without starting the infection from Madagascar. If you started from somewhere else Madagascar always had time to close the borders. Lo and behold: Madagascar is one of the few countries without infections in Global Cases tracker. https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.h...

The other takeaway from that game was that stealth symptoms with low fatality does the best out of any pandemic.

Well everyone gets the common cold!

Re: Outbreak – playable simulations of a disease outbreak

#50

Post by feu » Tue, Mar 17, 2020, 11:37 AM UTC

gambler wrote: post #22

If we're talking about disease-based games, I highly recommend Pathologic 2. Nothing realistic there in terms of modeling disease spread or cure mechanics, it's a very artistic and somewhat abstract game, but it conveys certain social realities of being in a contagion zone really well. Among other things, it show the importance of not collectively freaking out.

I second this recommendation. I'm currently playing through Pathologic 2 for the first time. Playing through the game in the wider context of a pandemic makes for a very powerful experience.