Tenement house model

TL;DR

This paper introduces a new discrete epidemic spreading model that limits contamination to one neighbor per time step, providing theoretical analysis and simulations, and is suitable for modeling spread in student communities.

Contribution

It presents a novel discrete model restricting to one contamination per step and offers theoretical predictions validated by simulations, applicable to student communal living.

Findings

Theoretical epidemic threshold derived and confirmed by simulations.

Stationary state and convergence time analytically predicted.

Model effectively mimics epidemic spread in student communes.

Abstract

Most of the common used models of epidemic spreading allow contaminating many neighbors of a particular node in the network. They are usually analyzed by differential equations on probability vectors. We propose a model of epidemic spreading, which restricts to at most one contamination per time step and analyze it by discrete approach, working on vectors of possible states of the system. Theoretical predictions of epidemic treshold, stationary state and time needed to reach it are given and appear to be perfectly consistent with computer simulations. We also point ou that the model appears to be well suited to mimic epidemic spreading within student communes.