City-Scale Agent-Based Simulators for the Study of Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions in the Context of the COVID-19 Epidemic

Shubhada Agrawal, Siddharth Bhandari, Anirban Bhattacharjee, Anand Deo, Narendra M. Dixit, Prahladh Harsha, Sandeep Juneja, Poonam Kesarwani, Aditya Krishna Swamy, Preetam Patil, Nihesh Rathod, Ramprasad Saptharishi, Sharad Shriram, Piyush Srivastava, Rajesh Sundaresan, Nidhin Koshy Vaidhiyan, Sarath Yasodharan

Abstract: We highlight the usefulness of city-scale agent-based simulators in studying various non-pharmaceutical interventions to manage an evolving pandemic. We ground our studies in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrate the power of the simulator via several exploratory case studies in two metropolises, Bengaluru and Mumbai. Such tools become common-place in any city administration's tool kit in our march towards digital health.