The effect of weekend curfews on epidemics: a Monte Carlo simulation

Abstract

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is being responded with various methods, applying vaccines, experimental treatment options, total lockdowns or partial curfews. Weekend curfews are among the methods for reducing the number of infected persons, and this method is practically applied in some countries such as Turkey. In this study, the effect of weekend curfews on reducing the spread of a contagious disease, such as COVID-19, is modeled using a Monte Carlo algorithm with a hybrid lattice model. In the simulation setup, a fictional country with three towns and 26,610 citizens were used as a model. Results indicate that applying a weekend curfew reduces the ratio of ill cases from 0.23 to 0.15. The results also show that applying personal precautions such as social distancing is important for reducing the number of cases and deaths. If the probability of disease spread can be reduced to 0.1, in that case, the death ratio can be minimized down to 0.