ISSS608 2017-18 T1 Assign RYAN CHIA

Overview

Smartpolis is a major metropolitan area with a population of approximately two million residents. During the last few days, health professionals at local hospitals have noticed a dramatic increase in reported illnesses. Observed symptoms are largely flu­like and include fever, chills,sweats, aches and pains, fatigue, coughing, breathing difficulty, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and enlarged lymph nodes. More recently, there have been several deaths believed to be associated with the current outbreak. City officials fear a possible epidemic and are mobilizing emergency management resources to mitigate the impact. You have been charged with providing an assessment of the situation.

Hypothesis

Cases of reported illness is due to an Industrial Property Explosion that occurred on the 17 May 2011 in the region of Smogtown. The residue from the particles released into the air by the explosion, is believed to be blown from the west to the Downtown and Uptown districts, and beyond, during the night, causing many to wake up the following day with an illness. The illness is believed to not be transmittable between humans and there is insufficient data to observe the time a patient will carry the symptoms. No containment is required, however, since no spike of cases was observed the following day.

Illness Discovery & Detection

The above image depicts the spike of number of detected illnesses through communication channels between 17 May and 18 May. While we cannot be sure who the ill party in the confirmation is, the assumption in place is that wherever either party may be, they are in relatively close proximity by nature of their friendship. Bearing that assumption in mind, we may observe a pattern in the data identified to be with illness. The image below highlights these pattern more clearly.

Spread Theory & Validation Criteria

At a glance, we could almost see the layering of infected people as illness spreads from the origin. The concentration of the number of detected illness cases ranging from the Downtown district to the Eastside district is reminiscent of an object travelling in a direct and losing momentum as it progress. This brought about the theory that the illness could be an airborne disease by studying the pattern of spread. In order for this theory to hold, the following 3 events must be true:

• People contracting the illness must show symptoms of Airborne illnesses
• Weather and Wind direction must be and blow in accordance to the climate necessary for movement illness catalyst East-ward
• There had to be highly probable source propagating the illness west of the infected zone.

Symptoms of Airborne Illness

According to Healthline.com symptoms of an Airborne illness are as follows:

• inflammation of your nose, throat, sinuses, or lungs
• coughing
• sneezing
• congestion
• runny nose
• sore throat
• swollen glands
• headache
• body aches
• loss of appetite
• fever
• fatigue

Based on the symptoms detected from the data, we observed a jump in 6 of the 12 symptoms to look out for. This reflected that a high probability that the illness catalyst may have been transmitted Airborne.