Covid simulator is exactly what it says on the can. Using the official’s data CDC websiteWith the game from indie developer Coldrice you can simulate how Covid-19 spreads in a workplace. There is no “win” condition. The simulation continues no matter how much debt your virtual company accumulates, and you can even run simulations without an employee. So there are no concrete goals, just sadistic experiments.
The game takes into account factors such as vaccination rates, masking, vaccination mood, different types of work schedules and whether or not an employee has recently died of Covid. While the simulator is in motion, players can always bring in new factors such as virus mutations or the spread of anti-vaccine propaganda in the office. Sometimes my coworkers took hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin (a common de-wormer used in horses that is unsuitable for human consumption). There have also been random events where vaccine sentiment was influenced by what was portrayed in the media.
First, I tried to simulate a workplace that most closely resembles the situation in the US today. I put the vaccinated population at 60%, the number of workers infected at 30%, and I estimate maybe half are wearing masks. I also started with 100 employees so calculating percentages was easy. I didn’t need any vaccinations or give anyone quarantine time. Occasionally people got sick, but the company’s profits remained in the red. And nobody died in the course of a month. In a society whose response to the pandemic was halfway up, our workplace managed to avoid total collapse.
I forced the virus to mutate, which meant my staff had to be re-vaccinated. Fortunately, the workplace was strictly pro-vaccines. That meant people were vaccinated quickly, very few became debilitating, and the company remained solidly profitable. Covid simulator painted an incredibly rosy picture of a job that could recover simply by maintaining a high level of vaccination advocate. Even in simulations where primary vaccination rates were low, I was able to hold corporate profits whenever vaccine adoption remained high. While I can’t say the simulator reflects real-world circumstances, there’s no denying that countries like Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore have achieved better results than vaccine hoarding, wealthier countries like the US
However, the 60% vaccination rate does not apply to all parts of the United States. Many Americans live in communities that are very immune to vaccinations. I started a new simulation. This time I simulated a workplace with a lot of antivax propaganda. In the beginning, we remained profitable despite the occasional death or hospitalization. However, all of those antivax simulations ended up spiraling into debt as a single mutation was enough for my business to collapse completely once the antivax sentiment took hold. The real virus in Covid simulator wasn’t the virus itself: it was pseudoscience and a refusal to prioritize collective welfare.
In some of these simulations, I tried my best to turn the antivax mood around. I have issued vaccination and mask mandates, but workers have been slow to adjust them. I found the best tactic to encourage vaccination was to give my staff the weekend off. Even so, my staff hardly changed their hesitant views on vaccination. None of my countermeasures could solve my company’s skyrocketing debt. As soon as Covid and vaccination objectors got their hands on my company, there was nothing I could do to save them.
According to the developer’s own admission Covid simulator has its shortcomings. The randomizer is rigged in favor of positive outcomes, and focusing on a company’s profits does not reveal the social costs of the pandemic. And although most of my antivax runs only killed one person, one percent of the American population is still hundreds of thousands of people. Despite its somber premise Covid simulator is a fascinating game that I can’t stop playing Kotaku Editors don’t look.
You can download it Covid simulator free on Itch.io, or wait for that steam Version slated to land on January 24th.
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