COVID-19 Outbreak: Model-Driven Impact Analysis Comparing Oman and Pakistan
Motivated by the rapid spread of COVID-19 all across the globe, we haveperformed simulations of a system dynamic epidemic spread model in differentpossible situations. The simulation, not only captures the model dynamic of thespread of the virus, but also, takes care of population and mobility data. Themodel is calibrated based on epidemic data and events as they happened. Thesimulation results are quite disturbing, indicating that, during a process of stringent social distancing and testing strategies, a small perturbation can lead toquite undesirable outcomes. The simulation results, although consistent in expected outcomes across changing parameters’ values, also indicate a substantialmismatch with real numbers. An analysis of what can be the reason of this mismatch is also performed. Within these contradictions, a comparative analysisof COVID-19 outbreak between two geographically close but demographicallyvery different countries – that is Oman and Pakistan – is performed.