Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute (KAERI) said Tuesday that it has developed the first local technology to predict the risk of Covid-19 infection in multipurpose facilities, jointly with two startups -- VAIV Company and iCaptain.

The development comes as the nation fights against Covid-19 spread at various places, including restaurants, gyms, and religious facilities.

The image shows the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute’s simulation of Covid-19 infection at a call center in Guro-gu, southwestern Seoul. (KAERI)
The image shows the Korea Atomic Energy Research Institute’s simulation of Covid-19 infection at a call center in Guro-gu, southwestern Seoul. (KAERI)

Korea has got the technology to simulate the spread of Covid-19 at a national level but found it difficult to predict exact transmission patterns at multiuse facilities and prepare quarantine methods due to the lack of technology for predicting the risk of infection at these places.

The joint research team of KAERI, VAIV Company, a big data and artificial intelligence developer, and iCaptain, a startup specializing in ship evacuation, used a three-dimensional model to build multi-use facilities. Researchers assessed all users' risk and the facility based on the distance between people with a model predicting infection probability.

The research team simulated the widespread infection spread from Guro-gu in southwestern Seoul in March and came up with a similar result to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency's epidemiologic investigation.

This technology can help find an optimal quarantine policy by predicting the risk based on the population clustered in the facility and the number of people wearing masks in the facilities.

"This model has been developed based on simplified rules without the participation of epidemiologists and healthcare experts," said Dr. Yu Yong-gyun of the KAERI Intelligence Computing Lab. "Experts from various fields should join the study to review and improve the accuracy of the simulation model."

KAERI President Park Won-seok also said, "The institute will apply the simulation and AI technologies to various facilities where people use every day."

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