Abstract
The outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 virus or COVID-19) disease was declared pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on March 11, 2020. COVID-19 has already affected more than 211 nations. In such a bleak scenario, it becomes imperative to analyze and identify those regions in Saudi Arabia that are at high risk. A preemptive study done in the context of predicting the possible COVID-19 hotspots would facilitate in the implementation of prompt and targeted countermeasures against SARS-CoV-2, thus saving many lives. Working towards this intent, the present study adopts a decision making based methodology of simulation named Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP), a multi criteria decision making approach, for assessing the risk of COVID-19 in different regions of Saudi Arabia. AHP gives the ability to measure the risks numerically. Moreover, numerical assessments are always effective and easy to understand. Hence, this research endeavour employs Fuzzy based computational method of decision making for its empirical analysis. Findings in the proposed paper suggest that Riyadh and Makkah are the most susceptible regions, implying that if sustained and focused preventive measures are not introduced at the right juncture, the two cities could be the worst afflicted with the infection. The results obtained through Fuzzy based computational method of decision making are highly corroborative and would be very useful for categorizing and assessing the current COVID-19 situation in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. More specifically, identifying the cities that are likely to be COVID-19 hotspots would help the country's health and medical fraternity to reinforce intensive containment strategies to counter the ills of the pandemic in such regions.