ABSTRACT
Mass vaccination is proving to be the most effective method of disease control, and several methods have been developed for the operation of mass vaccination clinics to administer vaccines safely and quickly. One such method is known as the hockey hub model, a relatively new method that involves isolating vaccine recipients in individual cubicles for the entire duration of the vaccination process. Healthcare staff move between the cubicles and administer vaccines. This allows for faster vaccine delivery and less recipient contact. In this paper we present a simulation tool which has been created to model the operation of a hockey hub clinic. This tool was developed using AnyLogic and simulates the process of individuals moving through a hockey hub vaccination clinic. To demonstrate this model, we simulate six scenarios comprising three different arrival rates with and without physical distancing. Findings demonstrate that the hockey hub method of vaccination clinic can function at a large capacity with minimal impact on wait times.
ABSTRACT
The elderly, especially those individuals with pre-existing health problems, have been disproportionally at a higher risk during the COVID-19 pandemic. Residents of long-term care facilities have been gravely affected by the pandemic and resident death numbers have been far above those of the general population. To better understand how infectious diseases such as COVID-19 can spread through long-term care facilities, we developed an agent-based simulation tool that uses a contact matrix adapted from previous infection control research in these types of facilities. This matrix accounts for the average distinct daily contacts between seven different agent types that represent the roles of individuals in long-term care facilities. The simulation results were compared to actual COVID-19 outbreaks in some of the long-term care facilities in Ontario, Canada. Our analysis shows that this simulation tool is capable of predicting the number of resident deaths after 50 days with a less than 0.1 variation in death rate. We modeled and predicted the effectiveness of infection control measures by utilizing this simulation tool. We found that to reduce the number of resident deaths, the effectiveness of personal protective equipment must be above 50%. We also found that daily random COVID-19 tests for as low as less than 10% of a long-term care facility's population will reduce the number of resident deaths by over 75%. The results further show that combining several infection control measures will lead to more effective outcomes.