Virtual City Tracks Spread of Covid-19

Liverpool-based CGA Simulation builds virtual city for Covid-19 contact tracing scheme.

04:18 21 September 2020

CGA Simulation, a Liverpool-based games development and emerging technology firm, has been chosen by Innovate UK to support the design of tech that can be used to trace how Covid-19 spreads in local communities. 

 

The firm, which creates games for PC, Mobile and Nintendo Switch, was previously involved in a scheme launched to test the safety of autonomous vehicle technologies on UK roads. Its simulations of UK towns and cities have been used as a 5G technology planning tool for Liverpool 5G Health and Social Care. 

 

Jon Wetherall, Managing Director for CGA Simulation, said: "Our technology acknowledges that each person in a community has a different commute to work, school or the gym, different friends and hobbies. Each 'person' we model in our digital world makes independent decisions about where they go and what their daily activities are, giving a more realistic view of how people's movements around a town or a city can impact on disease spread." 

 

"Modelling that gives us more detailed insights into human/viral interactions would help create 'combination interventions'. We ca model the risks associated with opening up different parts of society: cinemas + school + sports facility, to create mix and match interventions. We would open up and lockdown sections of society, activities or spaces at different times. We can model risks associated with different numbers of friends and family meeting in groups, inside or outside at any one time, to find out what the upper limit or safer is."