Modeling infectious disease dynamics

Science Magazine  May 15, 2020 According to researchers at the University of Chicago, mathematical modeling and historical influenza pandemics provide a warning about comparing the effects of interventions in different populations. A rapid decline in COVID-19 cases or a small springtime epidemic might be taken as evidence that interventions have been especially effective or that herd immunity has been achieved. But simple models show that epidemic dynamics become deeply unintuitive when there is seasonal variation in susceptibility or transmission, and especially when there is movement between populations. For SARS-CoV-2, like influenza virus, the shape of seasonal variation is uncertain. Linear […]

When coronavirus is not alone: Team of complexity scientists present ‘meme’ model for multiple diseases

Phys.org  February 24, 2020 From ‘fake news’ to innovative technologies, many contagions spread as complex contagions via a process of social reinforcement, where multiple exposures are distinct from prolonged exposure to a single source. Contrarily, biological agents such as Ebola or measles are typically thought to spread as simple contagions. An international team of researchers (USA -University of Vermont, Northeastern University, Canada) demonstrates that these different spreading mechanisms can have indistinguishable population-level dynamics once multiple contagions interact. In the social context, their results highlight the challenge of identifying and quantifying spreading mechanisms, such as social reinforcement, in a world where […]