On the Effectiveness of the Measures in Supermarkets for Reducing Contact among Customers during COVID-19 Period

• Main Authors: Qiancheng Xu, Mohcine Chraibi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-11-01
• Series: Sustainability
• Subjects: COVID-19 virus disease; control measures; supermarket; numerical simulation; microscopic model; contact
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/22/9385

The spread of the COVID-19 virus had a huge impact on human life on the global scale. Many control measures devoted to decrease contact among people have been adopted to slow down the transmission of the disease. A series of measures have been taken in supermarkets, which include restricting the number of customers, keeping social distance, and entering with a shopping cart. In this work, we investigate with numerical simulations the effectiveness of these measures in reducing the contact among customers. Several scenarios with different control measures are designed for numerical analysis. The movements of customers in a supermarket are simulated by a microscopic model for pedestrian dynamics. Moreover, an index based on the distance between customers is defined to measure the degree of contact and therefore evaluate it quantitatively. The effect of these measures on the average contact degree of each customer is explored, and the spatial distribution of the contact among customers in the supermarket is shown in a qualitative way. Simulation results show that except shopping cart measure, the other two measures are effective in reducing contact among customers.