Ajbillymaynes

UNITED STATES MILITARY ACADEMY

SM484

SECTION:B

MAJ SAPOL

BY

CADET BILLY BAIRD ‘15, CO B-1

WEST POINT, NEW YORK

28 AUGUST 2014

____ MY DOCUMENT IDENTIFIES ALL SOURCES USED AND ASSISTANCE

RECEIVED IN COMPLETING THIS ASSIGNMENT.

____ I DID NOT USE ANY SOURCES OR ASSISTANCE REQUIRING DOCUMENTATION IN COMPLETING THIS ASSIGNMENT.

SIGNATURE: ____________________________________________________________

SARS Epidemic

Situation

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a virus that has claimed the lives of thousands and people around the world. The virus was first reportedly contracted in China in 2002. The World Health Organization’s Global Out Break and Alert Response network was first made suspicious of the outbreak when they heard that there was a severe flu outbreak throughout China. This flu outbreak was later confirmed to be the deadly SARS virus. The strength of this disease is not what makes it such a problem but rather the fact that the disease spreads easily from person to person. Modeling the methods that spread SARS and how we can contain it, we are able to key in on the various different scenarios that could come from an outbreak of the SARS virus. More importantly, because we were able to model the different outcomes of the disease, we were able to reduce the damage this lethal disease might have on the population by allowing us to plan and put the necessary solutions into effect.

Model Explanation

In our model we started with the overall population that is susceptible to the SARS virus and for our purposes we assume that none of the population is immune to the disease. The first thing that we must model is the overall infection rate or how fast this virus can tear through a population and that has various different variable that make up this number. The first variable that we take into account is susceptible contacts or the amount of people that one would come into contact with on a daily basis. Direct human...