Infectious Disease Transmission via Aerosol Propagation from a Molecular Communication Perspective: Shannon Meets Coronavirus

TL;DR

This paper models aerosol transmission of infectious diseases using molecular communication theory, providing insights into infection processes and countermeasures, supported by experiments and simulations, with relevance to COVID-19 and other airborne diseases.

Contribution

It introduces a novel molecular communication framework for modeling aerosol transmission, integrating experimental and simulation data to analyze infection dynamics and countermeasures.

Findings

Mutual information between nodes should be minimized to reduce transmission.

Experimental results support the aerosol transmission model.

Simulation tools effectively replicate aerosol propagation and infection scenarios.

Abstract

Molecular communication is not only able to mimic biological and chemical communication mechanisms, but also provides a theoretical framework for viral infection processes. In this tutorial, aerosol and droplet transmission is modeled as a multiuser scenario with mobile nodes, related to broadcasting and relaying. In contrast to data communication systems, in the application of pathogen-laden aerosol transmission, mutual information between nodes should be minimized. Towards this goal, several countermeasures are reasoned. The findings are supported by experimental results and by an advanced particle simulation tool. This work is inspired by the recent outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, but also applicable to other airborne infectious diseases like influenza.