Researchers from the Brunel University London led by Dr Derek Groen have developed the Flu And Corona virus Simulator (FACS), a simulation tool that models the viral spread at the sub-national level, incorporating geospatial data sources to extract buildings and residential areas within a predefined region. Using FACS, the researchers can model Covid-19 spread at the local level, and provide estimates of the spread of infections and hospital arrivals for different scenarios. They can validate the simulation results with the ICU admissions numbers obtained from the local hospitals in the UK. Such validated models can be used to support local decision-making for an effective health and social care capability response to the epidemic.
The simulation work has been made to The Metro newspaper and The Sun newspaper which has predicted a second wave in London is likely ‘in almost all cases’, although the outbreak is likely to be significantly less severe than the first.
VECMA provides support in effectively running ensemble calculations, and facilitating validation and sensitivity analysis of the code through the FabCovid19 plugin, which sits on top of FabSim3, within the VECMA VVUQ Toolkit.