CoSiT: An Agent-based Tool for Training and Awareness to Fight the Covid-19 Spread

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020 and following the recommendation of the Emergency Committee, the WHO (World Health Organization) Director General declared that the Covid-19 outbreak constitutes a Public Health Emergency of International Concern. Given the urgency of this outbreak, the international community is mobilizing to find ways to significantly accelerate the development of interventions. These interventions include raising awareness of ethical solutions such as wearing a face mask and respecting social distancing. Unfortunately, these solutions have been criticized and the number of infections and deaths by Covid-19 has only increased because of the lack of respect for these gestures on the one hand, and because of the lack of awareness and training tools on the spread of this disease through simulation packages on the other. To give importance to the respect of these measures, the WHO is going to try to propose to his member states, training and sensitization campaigns on coronavirus through simulation packages, so that the right decisions are taken in time to save lives. Thus, a rigorous analysis of this problem has enabled us to identify three directions for reflection. First, how to propose an IT tool based on these constraints in order to generalize training and awareness for all? Secondly, how to model and simulate these prescribed measures in our current reality? Thirdly, how to make it playful, interactive, and participative so that it is flexible according to the user’s needs? To address these questions, this paper proposes an interactive Agent-Based Model (ABM) describing a pedagogical (training and educational) tool that can help understanding the spread of Covid-19 and then show the impact of the barrier measures recommended by the WHO. The tool implemented is quite simple to use and can help make appropriate and timely decisions to limit the spread of Covid-19 in the population.