Site Selection of Isolation Hospital for Coronavirus Patients in Nile Delta, Egypt, Using GIS Technology

Abstract

Coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) is a viral infection caused by the SARS‐CoV‐2 virus that first surfaced in December 2019. According to the World Health Organization, most persons infected with this virus suffer from mild to severe respiratory infections and recover without specific treatment or hospitalization. Some people, however, may acquire serious illnesses that need medical attention and isolation facilities. This paper investigates the use of multi‐criteria decision analysis (MCDA) based on GIS technology to determine the optimal site selection for isolation hospitals for coronavirus patients in Nile Delta region in Egypt using the fuzzy analytical hierarchy process (F‐AHP) and the weighted overlay tool analysis method (WOA). The research of isolation hospital site selection in Nile Delta governorates in Egypt is one of the areas that have received insufficient attention due to the current global coronavirus epidemic. Several criteria are applied to identify and select the isolation hospital location, including World Health Organization regulations, Egyptian Ministry of Health conditions, previous research studies, and field visits. Geodatabase is created using ArcGIS Pro software, and manual digitization is done. As a conclusion of the study, numerous additional optimal sites for isolated hospitals have been found and chosen. There are around 29 proposed ideal sites for isolated hospitals utilizing F‐AHP and approximately 24 sites using WOA approach in Nile Delta region. These planned hospital locations might be permanent as a central hospital or temporary, to be relocated after the epidemic is over. The paper emphasizes the need to use the study criteria while selecting and defining the location of coronavirus isolation hospitals.