The Mobile Game That Teaches Us How to Survive a Pandemic
At this point, most people already know what COVID-19 and the new coronavirus are. One is the airway disease caused by the other, which is — at this point — the most concerning pandemic of the last decades. Researchers draw parallels with the Spanish Flu, a plague that afflicted the world more than a century ago.
Many aspects of the infection remind me of a game I used to play on my phone. And I find it interesting how illustrative this game can be about the central mechanisms underlying the pandemic. As an anesthesiologist, I acknowledge that the developers got many features of a viral disease right.
Plague Inc. is a 2012 strategy/simulation game that lets you assume the role of a disease. Yes — you are the infection. It was developed by the UK-based indie studio Ndemic Creations. You can find more about the game on its website.
So, which points of the COVID-19 infection does this game depict? Can we actually learn something from it?
Let’s check it out.
How A Disease Spreads Around The Globe
A key element of the gameplay is to spread the disease you create. You can choose to play a bacteria, a virus, a prion — and even a shadowy condition that turns people into vampires.
COVID-19 is, as you probably already know at this point, a viral disease. The game describes viral pathogens as rapidly mutating and extremely hard to control. Both are true. The seasonal flu is an example of how viruses change over time, presenting new difficulties about how to manage their newly developed characteristics. And the new coronavirus presents so many challenges to humanity because it is different from what we knew.
Then, after you select your pathogen, you have to select the difficulty.
And this is, to me, one of the most insightful aspects of the game.
As your ultimate objective is to wipe out humanity, the game’s difficulty levels are based on:
- The percentage of people washing their hands;
- How many days a week doctors work;
- Whether sick people are ignored or not.
Aside from gameplay factors, these are the cornerstones of what we can do about the coronavirus.
Look closer.
Washing your hands is one of the most effective daily measures against the coronavirus since the pathogen can survive on surfaces like door handles. There’s a current global effort on educating people on how to wash their hands correctly. If you have any questions about it, I strongly recommend the CDC page on handwashing.
Recruiting medical personnel is, too, one of the key principles of handling a pandemic. As scientists devise protocols on how to manage the disease, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, and other health professionals team up to control its extension. As in Plague Inc., local governments tend to orchestrate these efforts.
Identifying and isolating sick people is the third element of Plague Inc.’s difficulty levels, as it is vital to contain infectious diseases. You probably have already heard about social distancing — keeping yourself from interacting too closely with other people — and quarantine — isolating the sick — by now. These actions are highly effective in keeping the pandemic at bay.
Now, after you selected your pathogen and the game’s difficulty level, it is time to go out infecting humans.
You choose the country in which the disease starts. In the case of the new coronavirus, it started in the Hubei Province in China. And like the COVID-19, your disease tends to start small. You infect a few people, then dozens, then hundreds. In no time, then, it goes global.
It is important to note that the more people get infected, the faster the disease spreads.
By analyzing the graph above, we understand that the disease progressed faster in Europe as more cases piled up. This is but logical: Every newly infected individual spreads the pathogen further. You can access this comprehensive disposition of data about the coronavirus in Europe here.
What Can Humanity Do About It?
The goal in Plague Inc. is to infect and ultimately kill every living person. But humanity doesn’t give up without a fight.
These are some measures humanity take against you in Plague Inc.:
- Shutting down airports;
- Closing borders;
- Isolating sick people;
- Developing a vaccine.
All these measures have already been taken against COVID-19.
Airports have been shut down across the world, and flight cancellations are now a common event. In this sense, Trump shocked the world with the recent US travel ban regarding Europe. Some people might call it a Draconian measure, but it did contain the influx of new cases to the United States. Like in real life, virtual politicians in Plague Inc. perform this action as well.
Countries decided to close borders to contain the spread of the disease further. As an example, the European Union closed its borders to tourists. Countries across the world are performing the same action as well. And as you might imagine, this also happens in Plague Inc. When a country closes its borders with neighboring nations, it becomes harder to spread the disease.
Worldwide, governments promote social distancing, quarantines, and early testing of suspected cases. In Plague Inc., you want people to have as much close contact as possible because it further increases the likelihood of transmission. In real life, however, we want to protect healthy people from contracting the disease — especially the elderly and people with co-morbidities like pre-existing lung diseases.
In Plague Inc., you lose the game if humanity manages to develop a vaccine. This is because a vaccine is one of the most powerful tools in preventing a pandemic. The most notable case of a disease eradicated through vaccination is smallpox. The World Health Assembly declared that humanity got rid of smallpox on May 8, 1980. This was a major breakthrough in the history of immunization.
The lack of vaccines is also a reason why the new coronavirus is so dangerous. Unlike Influenza, against which we have vaccination programs, there is no currently available vaccine against the coronavirus. It might take still several months until a vaccine is fully developed. Until then, we have to fight the pandemic in any way we can — as humanity does in the game.
Take-Home Messages
Plague Inc. is a fun way to learn how a pandemic works — and what we can do about it.
To keep yourself and your social circle safe during these hair-raising times, here are some take-home points:
- Wash your hands thoroughly and frequently;
- Seek medical care if you suspect you might suffer from COVID-19;
- Don’t ignore symptoms;
- Promote social distancing;
- Read and follow the guidelines of your local government.
If you do not know where to find reliable information about the new coronavirus, here is another article I wrote.
Stay safe — and have fun playing Plague Inc.
