ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Assign RACHEL TONG GroundZero

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Preface

Origins

Transmission

Containment

Coda

Part I - Origins

This section of the notes is dedicated to understanding the disease origins.

Preliminary Exploration

In order to decipher the origins of the disease, some preliminary understanding of the situation was necessary. The sections below detail the major findings.

Characterizing Symptoms

From phrase/text-based classification of the Symptoms, 2 distinct symptom groupings, classified based on geolocation clustering and concentration variations with time, are observed to be present. The table below summarizes some of the characteristics observed.

Symptom Type	Symptoms	Patterns Observed	First Observed
Gastrointestinal-related	Nausea Diarrhea Stomachache	Strongly concentrated at Plainville/Westside/Smogtown, along river banks	05/19/2011, morning
Traditional Flu-like symptoms	Fever Sore throat Cough Cold Shortness of breath Chills & aches	Strongly concentrated at central region (Downtown, Uptown), and some spillover to Eastside Slight funnel shape observed, from western downtown region and spreading out towards the east	05/18/2011, morning

Major Events in Smartpolis

Keeping in mind the possible disease origins and modes of transmissions detailed above, a text-based search was carried out to elucidate major events that occurred over the period of 30 April to 20 May 2011 in Smartpolis. Some of the possible relevant events and incidents include:

Event	Date	Location
Antique Convention	05/04/2011	Convention Center, Uptown
Baseball Game	05/09/2011	Westside Stadium, Westside
Sham Wow Convention	05/11/2011	Convention Center, Uptown
Plane crash and fire	05/13/2011	Vastopolis Airport, Northville
Comic Convention	05/16/2011	Convention Center, Uptown
Explosion	05/17/2011	Smogtown
Truck accident/spillage of cargo	05/17/2011	Highway 610 along bridge
Basketball Match	05/18/2011	Vastopolis Dome, Downtown
Technology Convention	05/18/2011	Convention Center, Uptown

Ground Zero Hypothesis

The following are the hypotheses developed about the 2 major groups of symptoms observed.

Gastrointestinal-related Symptoms

Based on region of impact (demarcated in red) strongly localized at river bank regions (Plainville, Westside, Smogtown, southernmost Villa), likely waterborne origins (Vast River)
Since only part of river bank regions (specifically, southern river) were affected, water contamination is likely from central area
Cross referencing with the major events, most likely origin of river contamination is truck cargo spillage along Highway 610 (bridge section, shown by the black arrow) on 17th May

Traditional Flu-type Symptoms

Symptom-related posts appear in funnel shape(black lines), concentrated from Bridge 610 in the Downtown/central region (below, left; see black arrow), eastwards

Given that wind was blowing from west to east continuously from the 17th to 18th of May (above, right), the hypothesis is that origin is also likely due to truck cargo spillage
We thus infer that first human contraction is likely via airborne-medium exposure to spilt cargo from the truck on Highway 610

Besides these initial inferences, the further observations made in the course of developing the hypotheses on illness transmission also helped to support these ground zero hypotheses. More details may be found in the following case section on Transmission.