Epidemic spreading and control strategies in spatial modular network

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the spatial modular structure of networks influences epidemic spread and control, revealing two epidemic thresholds and emphasizing early intervention for effective disease containment.

Contribution

It introduces a spatial modular network model for epidemic spread, analytically identifies two epidemic thresholds, and proposes optimized control strategies emphasizing early actions.

Findings

Two epidemic thresholds: local and global spread

Control strategies can effectively contain the epidemic

Early intervention is crucial for preventing global spread

Abstract

Epidemic spread on networks is one of the most studied dynamics in network science and has important implications in real epidemic scenarios. Nonetheless, the dynamics of real epidemics and how it is affected by the underline structure of the infection channels are still not fully understood. Here we apply the SIR model and study analytically and numerically the epidemic spread on a recently developed spatial modular model imitating the structure of cities in a country. The model assumes that inside a city the infection channels connect many different locations, while the infection channels between cities are less and usually directly connect only a few nearest neighbor cities in a two-dimensional plane. We find that the model experience two epidemic transitions. The first lower threshold represents a local epidemic spread within a city but not to the entire country and the second higher threshold represents a global epidemic in the entire country. Based on our analytical solution we proposed several control strategies and how to optimize them. We also show that while control strategies can successfully control the disease, early actions are essentials to prevent the disease global spread.