"Covid 19" is a mesmerizing if horrifying simulation that powerfully illustrates the importance of social distancing as a strategy to defeat the spread of Coronavirus. Created by artificial life/avatar technology pioneer Jeffrey Ventrella, a programmer who did some seminal work for Second Life and other virtual worlds, it animates what charts cannot quite convey: Not just that social distancing "flattens the curve", but that failure to practice social distancing gets people yanked into the hospital -- or worse, sent unceremoniously to the morgue.
"In early March, I heard about [the simulation in] this article in the Washington Post," Jeffrey tells me, explaining the origin of the program. "Friends kept telling me it looked like something I would do, so I decided to try my own variation -- with the addition of a hospital symbol that shows how social distancing eases the load on hospitals. Since I do particle systems in my sleep, it was a perfect experiment for me."
He created "Covid 19" in JavaScript and Html/Canvas, using similar physics techniques to Clusters, another Ventrella sim. Here's its basic operation:
"The balls are always wandering around randomly. Increasing social distancing makes the force that allows them to repel each other stronger, so they bump into each other less." Once bumped, the chances of infection go up. "The hospital does almost all of the logic in the code."
His simulation models 200 people. With maximum social distance practiced, only 2 are infected, and none die. With no social distance practiced, a jaw-dropping 187 are infected, and 13 die. I.E., 6%.
6% of the United States population, by the way, is nearly 2 million people -- perhaps not coincidentally, that's around the high end of deaths by COVID-19 predicted by an influential Imperial College study which spurred UK and US politicians to (belated) action.
Read more about Jeffrey's simulation here -- and consider sharing with someone who doesn't take social distancing seriously.
I would imagine it's not coincidence that his simulation is similar to the Imperial College study. He likely based his simulation off of their model. Simulations do not prove anything, they show how the results if a specific model is accurate.
Posted by: Amanda Dallin | Thursday, April 09, 2020 at 10:53 AM