Modelling the spreading rate of controlled communicable epidemics through an entropy-based thermodynamic model

TL;DR

This paper introduces an entropy-based thermodynamic model to predict the spread of controlled epidemics in urban settings, effectively capturing epidemic dynamics with a single parameter derived from entropy maximization.

Contribution

It presents a novel thermodynamic approach that simplifies epidemic modeling by integrating control efforts into an entropy framework, accurately predicting case numbers using minimal parameters.

Findings

Model predicts hospitalized cases with reasonable accuracy

Effective in capturing epidemic inflexion points

Applicable to various communicable diseases like SARS and H7N9

Abstract

A model based on a thermodynamic approach is proposed for predicting the dynamics of communicable epidemics in a city, when the epidemic is governed by controlling efforts of multiple scales so that an entropy is associated with the system. All the epidemic details are factored into a single parameter that is determined by maximizing the rate of entropy production. Despite the simplicity of the final model, it predicts the number of hospitalized cases with a reasonable accuracy, using the data of SARS of the year 2003, once the inflexion point characterizing the effect of multiple controlling efforts is known. This model is supposed to be of potential usefulness since epidemics such as avian influenza like H7H9 in China this year have the risk to become communicable among human beings.