- Letter
Periodic epidemic outbursts explained by local saturation of clusters
Phys. Rev. E 107, L012201 – Published 19 January, 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.107.L012201
Abstract
Adding the notion of spatial locality to the susceptible-infected-recovered (or SIR) model, allows to capture local saturation of an epidemic. The resulting minimum model of an epidemic, consisting of five ordinary differential equations with constant model coefficients, reproduces slowly decaying periodic outbursts, as observed in the COVID-19 or Spanish flu epidemic. It is shown that if immunity decays, even slowly, the model yields a fully periodic dynamics.
