Particle Simulation for COVID19
Based on what I understand now, flattening the curve won't be enough. We'll need to invent vaccines and/or build makeshift hospitals and equipment. This means travel restrictions are gonna need to be increasingly strict. The alternative is to get smarter about imposing restrictions.
Current restrictions may negatively affect people living paycheck to paycheck, or people working in certain industries.
Some questions that I'm interested in answering: 1) Should we consider quarantining those at risk instead of everyone? This may help us get to herd immunity faster. Right now, a lockdown may be counterproductive unless you also put in foreign travel restrictions far out from now and plan to get to a point where contact tracing can work again. That seems like an insane proposition, but we don't want to open a lockdown and then have the virus continue picking off some majority of people who didn't get infected.
2) A high rate of mutation can mean that there's a risk this virus becomes endemic. If every country shuts down for a month (at the same time), then this will help stop the virus from spreading (and also mutating).
3) Are we going to need to separate families from each other to slow the spread? I hope not, but I'd rather have data behind it rather than politicians trying things ad-hoc
4) Maybe the measures above are too draconian. If so, we should consider making sure the (mostly elderly) die with dignity. If 5x more (or whatever the number is) elderly die in the 4 couple months than usual, I can imagine us having to face short-term shortages of caskets, burial sites, etc. I think we'll see certain places get hit more than others. Places with high obesity might see more shortages