Stochastic social behavior coupled to COVID-19 dynamics leads to waves, plateaus and an endemic state

TL;DR

This paper introduces a stochastic social behavior model integrated with COVID-19 dynamics, revealing how dynamic heterogeneity causes epidemic waves, plateaus, and endemic states, aligning with real-world observations.

Contribution

It presents a novel model incorporating dynamic social activity into epidemiology, explaining complex epidemic patterns and long-term endemic behavior.

Findings

Dynamic heterogeneity leads to prolonged epidemic plateaus.

Multiple waves emerge due to social activity fluctuations.

A long timescale governs transition to endemic state.

Abstract

It is well recognized that population heterogeneity plays an important role in the spread of epidemics. While individual variations in social activity are often assumed to be persistent, i.e. constant in time, here we discuss the consequences of dynamic heterogeneity. By integrating the stochastic dynamics of social activity into traditional epidemiological models we demonstrate the emergence of a new long timescale governing the epidemic in broad agreement with empirical data. Our model captures multiple features of real-life epidemics such as COVID-19, including prolonged plateaus and multiple waves, which are transiently suppressed due to the dynamic nature of social activity. The existence of the long timescale due to the interplay between epidemic and social dynamics provides a unifying picture of how a fast-paced epidemic typically will transition to the endemic state.