Modelling-based Simulator for Forecasting the Spread of COVID-19: A Case Study of Saudi Arabia

In March 2020, Saudi Arabia reported that the Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) spread to its territory, originating from China. In this study, a new simulation model estimates and forecasts the number of infected subjects with COVID-19 in the upcoming weeks, based on different parameters, in two major cities in Saudi Arabia, namely Riyadh (the capital) and Jeddah, the second largest city. Unlike most of the recent simulators, our simulator attempts to focus on real data related to Saudi Arabia. Moreover, this paper investigates the parameters that can help to understand and predict the behavior of the biological curve, particularly, in Saudi Arabia. The proposed forecasting model considers several parameters, such as the infection rate, the virus lifetime, the number of infected people, the number of uninfected people, the recovery rate, the death rate, the recovery period, the period of simulation (in days), and the social distancing. The study investigates different scenarios using random test data and real data, where the results show the importance of two parameters on the pandemic spread; the infection rate and the walking distance. Therefore, this work can be used to raise the awareness of public and officials to the seriousness of the current pandemic.