A Policy Strategy Evaluation for Covid-19 Pandemic in the City of Surabaya using Vensim Ventana Dynamic System Simulation

The global Covid-19 pandemic has been a considerable concern worldwide. In Surabaya city, the government has taken particular measures to establish appropriate policies to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic. However, there has been no precise measure to verify the effectiveness of the policy in the future. This research aims to evaluate the Surabaya Government policy scenario using a dynamic system-based simulation with Vensim Ventana software. The initial model was designed with adopting the Covid-19 model made by Tom Fiddaman, Ventana System in 2020 adjusted to real conditions in Surabaya. The simulation results obtained from the initial validated model estimate that the Covid-19 pandemic would end on May 5, 2021, with total infected 15,876 people. The model was then developed by simulating several policy scenarios: herd immunity, convalescent plasma therapy, and swab test to predict policy's impact. The best-case scenario is gained by combining the convalescent plasma therapy policy and increasing the number of swab tests at Labkesda to 4,000 samples per day. The simulation results' prediction shows the pandemic will end 52 days earlier, with the percentage of the infected population 23.77% smaller than the initial model. It can be concluded that the government's strategy of collaborating the two policies is effective to overcome the pandemic in Surabaya. Nevertheless, the implementation of policies to overcome this pandemic success with contributions from all elements of society.

I. Introduction

Covid-19 is a disease that initially broke out in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019. Furthermore, Covid-19 was designated by the World Health organization (WHO) as a global pandemic on Wednesday, March 11th, 2020, based on reports of 118,000 positive cases spread across 114 countries in this world. Based on data released in Indonesia (initial case - mid-July 2020), East Java Province is the province with the largest contributor to positive cases in Indonesia. On the other hand, it turns out that Surabaya is the city with the highest positive confirmation in East Java Province [1].