Abstract
AbstractThe development of quantitative models of outbreaks is key to their eventual control, from human and computer viruses through to social (and antisocial) activities. Standard epidemiological models can reproduce many general features of outbreaks. Unfortunately, the large temporal fluctuations which often dominate real-world data are thought to require more complicated, system-specific models involving super-spreaders, specific social network topologies and rewirings, and birth-death processes. However we show here that these large fluctuations have a generic explanation in terms of underlying community dynamics. Communities increasing (or decreasing) in size, act as instantaneous amplifiers (or suppressors) yielding a complex temporal evolution whose features vary dramatically according to the relative timescales of the community dynamics. We uncover, and provide an analytic theory for, a novel epidemiological phase transition driven by the population's response to an outbreak. An imminent epidemic will be suppressed if individual communities start to break up more frequently or join together less frequently, but will be amplified if the reverse is true.
Highlights
There is great interest in developing models which can explain the time-dependence of infection levels in the outbreak of a biological virus and other social phenomena[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,12]
We show here that these large fluctuations have a generic explanation in terms of underlying community dynamics
Communities increasing in size, act as instantaneous amplifiers yielding a complex temporal evolution whose features vary dramatically according to the relative timescales of the community dynamics
Summary
There is great interest in developing models which can explain the time-dependence of infection levels in the outbreak of a biological virus and other social phenomena[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,12]. We show here that these large fluctuations have a generic explanation in terms of underlying community dynamics.
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
