Modelling the Spread of Covid-19 on Malaysian Contact Networks for Practical Reopening Strategies in an Institutional Setting

TL;DR

This study models Covid-19 spread on Malaysian contact networks to evaluate reopening strategies in institutions, using SIR simulations on student networks to identify effective testing and monitoring approaches.

Contribution

It introduces a practical framework for reopening strategies based on contact network simulations, incorporating partial compliance scenarios for institutions and organizations.

Findings

Full contact knowledge yields best outbreak mitigation.

Strategies remain effective under partial compliance.

Simulations applicable to various organizational settings.

Abstract

Reopening strategies are crucial to balance efforts of economic revitalization and bringing back a sense of normalcy while mitigating outbreaks and effectively flattening the infection curve. This paper proposes practical reopening, monitoring and testing strategies for institutions to reintroduce physical meetings based on SIR simulations run on a student friendship network collected pre-Covid-19. These serve as benchmarks to assess several testing strategies that can be applied in physical classes. Our simulations show that the best outbreak mitigation results are obtained with full knowledge of contact, but are also robust to non-compliance of students to new social interaction guidelines, simulated by partial knowledge of the interactions. These results are not only applicable to institutions but also for any organization or company wanting to navigate the Covid-19 ravaged world.