Home-Office Strategies for Pandemic Intervention from the Perspective of Commuting

Abstract:

This paper aims to compare the effects of several home-office strategies to mitigate spreads of infectious diseases in metropolises using simulation approaches， in order to support formulations of pandemic interventions in the post-pandemic period. Taking Shanghai as an example， and based on the current situation of work， residence， and commuting reflected by the mobile phone data， a multi-agent simulation is conducted to simulate the spread of virus across the region. Besides，the influences of several home-office strategies are discussed from the macro， meso， and micro levels. It is found that as the proportion of the home-office population increases， the spread is weakened， the proportions of young people in the infected population decrease， and the proportions of the elderly increase. The farther the personal commuting distance， the closer the home is to the city center， and the closer the work place is to the disease source， the more likely is an individual susceptible and infectious. Long distance commuters have the greatest impact on the spread. Choosing home-office workers based on commuting distance can mitigate the spread more efficiently than random selection.