Enhancing Pandemic Preparedness Using Mean Field and Simulation Modeling

The COVID-19 pandemic has emphasized the importance of preparedness and response plans for healthcare providers and rational responses from society to effectively manage infectious disease outbreaks. Strategic guidelines should be created to ensure the availability of required resources while considering the rational response of individuals under different policy scenarios. This study uses a simulation-optimization-game theory approach to first determine the daily number of infected people in response to social distancing policies in a game theoretical setup. Second, this daily number of infected people is used in a simulation to determine an optimal replenishment policy for restocking personal protective equipment (PPE) items. The model incorporates a combination of mean field games modeling and a simulation model in Simio to perform optimization tasks. This approach aims to guarantee the availability of required resources by taking into account the rational response of individuals under different policy scenarios.