The social dynamics of COVID-19

Thomas Lux

Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, 2021, vol. 567, issue C

Abstract: We add a simple dynamic process for adaptive “social distancing” measures to a standard SIR model of the COVID pandemic. With a limited attention span and in the absence of a consistent long-term strategy against the pandemic, this process leads to a sweeping of an instability, i.e. fluctuations in the effective reproduction number around its bifurcation value of Reff=1. While mitigating the pandemic in the short-run, this process remains intrinsically fragile and does not constitute a sustainable strategy that societies could follow for an extended period of time.

Keywords: COVID pandemic; SIR model; Social interaction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:phsmap:v:567:y:2021:i:c:s0378437120310086

DOI: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.125710

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