Simulating an epidemic
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN pointed to it during 2020 as a digestible, well-made illustration of epidemic dynamics and interventions.
What it is
3Blue1Brown builds toy SIR models to simulate how an epidemic spreads and tests scenarios like social distancing, travel restrictions, central gathering places and quarantine. It was made during the early COVID-19 outbreak.
Recommended by 8 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2020 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec foobarbecue · 2020-03 · on “Japan set to ban entry from the U.S. as early as next week”
Part of 3 Blue 1 Brown's excellent latest video simulates travel restrictions and suggests they're not very effective: [this video] . However, that was only for cutting travel between all communities by a factor of 4, rather than completely banning travel between two particular communities / countries.
Strong rec kaunta · 2020-04 · on “Building a command line tool to simulate the spread of an infection”
Garrett, thank you. * * * My inspiration for writing this came from watching 3Blue1Brown's YouTube video, "Simulating an epidemic": [this video] His simulations cover several scenarios: - Simulating social distancing. - Having people travel to a central location (e.g. a grocery store). - What if the government is able to identify and isolate cases? - Simulating multiple communities with travel, that put quarantine measures in place. - What happens when people get tired of social distancing. * * * Thanks for sharing your code. I see that you are using gnuplot to visualize the output of the script. Have you considered using the csv module ( [LINK] ) to output the data, instead of using the print()
Recommends gilbetron · 2020-03 · on “FDA grants emergency use authorization for 5-13 minute Covid-19 test”
If we can test and isolate, we can manage how the disease progresses through society, with a (very very slight, now) chance of stopping it. While not scientific, this is illustrative and well done that shows many aspects of disease spread: [this video]
Recommends mcsb4 · 2020-03 · on “Austria to make basic face masks compulsory in supermarkets”
Homemade masks made of a double layer of tea towel cloth are not only protecting others but also protect yourself nearly as effectively as N95 masks. The original research was made by PHE - Public Health England and the results are: B atrophaeus - ~1um : Surgical mask 96.35% filtering Double layer tea towel 96.71% filtering Bacteriophage MS2 - 23nm : Surgical mask 89.52% filtering Tea towel one layer 72.46% filtering The full paper is on researchgate, title: "Testing the Efficacy of Homemade Masks: Would They Protect in an Influenza Pandemic?" Also every super market should have the use of hand sanitizer obligatory at the entrance. There is a pretty good video for simulations of the epidemic
Recommends ignoramous · 2020-04 · on “Covid-19 Antibody Seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California”
> ...noticeable reduction in the spread? I believe the SIR model [0] answers those questions. 3blue1brown's video on the topic is super digestible and informative [1]. In short, the discovery of a prophylactic if not a therapeutic treatment are our best immediate bets, absent which, quarantines and lockdowns will have to persist to curb the spread of a disease as infectious as covid-19 whilst we patiently wait for an effective vaccine against it [2]. [0] [LINK] [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Recommends tmabraham · 2020-10 · on “Manim: Animation engine for explanatory math videos”
BTW, he's currently co-teaching a course on Julia with some really great lectures on computational thinking: [LINK] He also had a nice video about epidemics/pandemics: [this video] All using manim for visualizations.
Recommends gus_massa · 2021-01 · on “Contra Weyl on Technocracy”
> Technocrats used complicated mathematical models to determine that mass vaccination would create a "herd immunity" to disease. The SIR model is very simple [LINK] At the beginning of the covid19 epidemic everyone and their dog was writing one and publishing a demo version. It was interesting/scary to modify the parameters and see how thing changed. Also, try to fix misinformation in the models, like a 50% death rate. Anyway, a SIR model can be programed in 20 lines of codes, and is pretty straightforward. Adding a vaccine is like 5 additional lines at most. Also, the main idea is very simple to understand. (Someone should write a tutorial of SIR in Excel/GoogleSheets, it's interesting to s
Recommends systemvoltage · 2021-05 · on “India’s second wave of Covid-19 feels nothing like its first”
Dynamics of the virus spread is quite interesting. 3Blue1Brown made a fascinating video about how an epidemic spreads: [this video]