scholarly journals A Linear Dynamical Perspective on Epidemiology: Interplay Between Early COVID-19 Outbreak and Human Mobility

Author(s):  
Shakib Mustavee ◽  
Shaurya Agarwal ◽  
Suddhasattwa Das ◽  
Chinwendu Enyioha

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of human activity and mobility (HAM) in the spreading dynamics of an epidemic. Specifically, it explores the interconnections between HAM and its effect on the early spread of the COVID-19 virus. During the early stages of the pandemic, effective reproduction numbers exhibited a high correlation with human mobility patterns, leading to a hypothesis that the HAM system can be studied as a coupled system with disease spread dynamics. This study applies the generalized Koopman framework with control inputs to determine the nonlinear disease spread dynamics and the input-output characteristics as a locally linear controlled dynamical system. The approach solely relies on the snapshots of spatiotemporal data and does not require any knowledge of the system’s physical laws. We exploit the Koopman operator framework by utilizing the Hankel Dynamic Mode Decomposition with Control (HDMDc) algorithm to obtain a linear disease spread model incorporating human mobility as a control input. The study demonstrated that the proposed methodology could capture the impact of local mobility on the early dynamics of the ongoing global pandemic. The obtained locally linear model can accurately forecast the number of new infections for various prediction windows ranging from two to four weeks. The study corroborates a leader-follower relationship between mobility and disease spread dynam-

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Viktor Jirsa ◽  
Spase Petkoski ◽  
Huifang Wang ◽  
Marmaduke Woodman ◽  
Jan Fousek ◽  
...  

During the current COVID-19 pandemic, governments must make decisions based on a variety of information including estimations of infection spread, health care capacity, economic and psychosocial considerations. The disparate validity of current short-term forecasts of these factors is a major challenge to governments. By causally linking an established epidemiological spread model with dynamically evolving psychosocial variables, using Bayesian inference we estimate the strength and direction of these interactions for German and Danish data of disease spread, human mobility, and psychosocial factors based on the serial cross-sectional COVID-19 Snapshot Monitoring (COSMO; N = 16,981). We demonstrate that the strength of cumulative influence of psychosocial variables on infection rates is of a similar magnitude as the influence of physical distancing. We further show that the efficacy of political interventions to contain the disease strongly depends on societal diversity, in particular group-specific sensitivity to affective risk perception. As a consequence, the model may assist in quantifying the effect and timing of interventions, forecasting future scenarios, and differentiating the impact on diverse groups as a function of their societal organization. Importantly, the careful handling of societal factors, including support to the more vulnerable groups, adds another direct instrument to the battery of political interventions fighting epidemic spread.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nishant Kishore ◽  
Rebecca Kahn ◽  
Pamela P. Martinez ◽  
Pablo M. De Salazar ◽  
Ayesha S. Mahmud ◽  
...  

ABSTRACTIn response to the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, unprecedented policies of travel restrictions and stay-at-home orders were enacted around the world. Ultimately, the public’s response to announcements of lockdowns - defined here as restrictions on both local movement or long distance travel - will determine how effective these kinds of interventions are. Here, we measure the impact of the announcement and implementation of lockdowns on human mobility patterns by analyzing aggregated mobility data from mobile phones. We find that following the announcement of lockdowns, both local and long distance movement increased. To examine how these behavioral responses to lockdown policies may contribute to epidemic spread, we developed a simple agent-based spatial model. We find that travel surges following announcements of lockdowns can increase seeding of the epidemic in rural areas, undermining the goal of the lockdown of preventing disease spread. Appropriate messaging surrounding the announcement of lockdowns and measures to decrease unnecessary travel are important for preventing these unintended consequences of lockdowns.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 92 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jürgen Hackl ◽  
Thibaut Dubernet

Human mobility is a key element in the understanding of epidemic spreading. Thus, correctly modeling and quantifying human mobility is critical for studying large-scale spatial transmission of infectious diseases and improving epidemic control. In this study, a large-scale agent-based transport simulation (MATSim) is linked with a generic epidemic spread model to simulate the spread of communicable diseases in an urban environment. The use of an agent-based model allows reproduction of the real-world behavior of individuals’ daily path in an urban setting and allows the capture of interactions among them, in the form of a spatial-temporal social network. This model is used to study seasonal influenza outbreaks in the metropolitan area of Zurich, Switzerland. The observations of the agent-based models are compared with results from classical SIR models. The model presented is a prototype that can be used to analyze multiple scenarios in the case of a disease spread at an urban scale, considering variations of different model parameters settings. The results of this simulation can help to improve comprehension of the disease spread dynamics and to take better steps towards the prevention and control of an epidemic.


2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng-Chun Chang ◽  
Rebecca Kahn ◽  
Yu-An Li ◽  
Cheng-Sheng Lee ◽  
Caroline O. Buckee ◽  
...  

Abstract Background As COVID-19 continues to spread around the world, understanding how patterns of human mobility and connectivity affect outbreak dynamics, especially before outbreaks establish locally, is critical for informing response efforts. In Taiwan, most cases to date were imported or linked to imported cases. Methods In collaboration with Facebook Data for Good, we characterized changes in movement patterns in Taiwan since February 2020, and built metapopulation models that incorporate human movement data to identify the high risk areas of disease spread and assess the potential effects of local travel restrictions in Taiwan. Results We found that mobility changed with the number of local cases in Taiwan in the past few months. For each city, we identified the most highly connected areas that may serve as sources of importation during an outbreak. We showed that the risk of an outbreak in Taiwan is enhanced if initial infections occur around holidays. Intracity travel reductions have a higher impact on the risk of an outbreak than intercity travel reductions, while intercity travel reductions can narrow the scope of the outbreak and help target resources. The timing, duration, and level of travel reduction together determine the impact of travel reductions on the number of infections, and multiple combinations of these can result in similar impact. Conclusions To prepare for the potential spread within Taiwan, we utilized Facebook’s aggregated and anonymized movement and colocation data to identify cities with higher risk of infection and regional importation. We developed an interactive application that allows users to vary inputs and assumptions and shows the spatial spread of the disease and the impact of intercity and intracity travel reduction under different initial conditions. Our results can be used readily if local transmission occurs in Taiwan after relaxation of border control, providing important insights into future disease surveillance and policies for travel restrictions.


2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Douglas Do Couto Teixeira ◽  
Aline Carneiro Viana ◽  
Jussara M. Almeida ◽  
Mrio S. Alvim

Predicting mobility-related behavior is an important yet challenging task. On the one hand, factors such as one’s routine or preferences for a few favorite locations may help in predicting their mobility. On the other hand, several contextual factors, such as variations in individual preferences, weather, traffic, or even a person’s social contacts, can affect mobility patterns and make its modeling significantly more challenging. A fundamental approach to study mobility-related behavior is to assess how predictable such behavior is, deriving theoretical limits on the accuracy that a prediction model can achieve given a specific dataset. This approach focuses on the inherent nature and fundamental patterns of human behavior captured in that dataset, filtering out factors that depend on the specificities of the prediction method adopted. However, the current state-of-the-art method to estimate predictability in human mobility suffers from two major limitations: low interpretability and hardness to incorporate external factors that are known to help mobility prediction (i.e., contextual information). In this article, we revisit this state-of-the-art method, aiming at tackling these limitations. Specifically, we conduct a thorough analysis of how this widely used method works by looking into two different metrics that are easier to understand and, at the same time, capture reasonably well the effects of the original technique. We evaluate these metrics in the context of two different mobility prediction tasks, notably, next cell and next distinct cell prediction, which have different degrees of difficulty. Additionally, we propose alternative strategies to incorporate different types of contextual information into the existing technique. Our evaluation of these strategies offer quantitative measures of the impact of adding context to the predictability estimate, revealing the challenges associated with doing so in practical scenarios.


2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (7) ◽  
pp. e0009614
Author(s):  
Kathryn L. Schaber ◽  
Amy C. Morrison ◽  
William H. Elson ◽  
Helvio Astete-Vega ◽  
Jhonny J. Córdova-López ◽  
...  

Background Human mobility among residential locations can drive dengue virus (DENV) transmission dynamics. Recently, it was shown that individuals with symptomatic DENV infection exhibit significant changes in their mobility patterns, spending more time at home during illness. This change in mobility is predicted to increase the risk of acquiring infection for those living with or visiting the ill individual. It has yet to be considered, however, whether social contacts are also changing their mobility, either by socially distancing themselves from the infectious individual or increasing contact to help care for them. Social, or physical, distancing and caregiving could have diverse yet important impacts on DENV transmission dynamics; therefore, it is necessary to better understand the nature and frequency of these behaviors including their effect on mobility. Methodology and principal findings Through community-based febrile illness surveillance and RT-PCR infection confirmation, 67 DENV positive (DENV+) residents were identified in the city of Iquitos, Peru. Using retrospective interviews, data were collected on visitors and home-based care received during the illness. While 15% of participants lost visitors during their illness, 22% gained visitors; overall, 32% of all individuals (particularly females) received visitors while symptomatic. Caregiving was common (90%), particularly caring by housemates (91%) and caring for children (98%). Twenty-eight percent of caregivers changed their behavior enough to have their work (and, likely, mobility patterns) affected. This was significantly more likely when caring for individuals with low “health-related quality of well-being” during illness (Fisher’s Exact, p = 0.01). Conclusions/Significance Our study demonstrates that social contacts of individuals with dengue modify their patterns of visitation and caregiving. The observed mobility changes could impact a susceptible individual’s exposure to virus or a presymptomatic/clinically inapparent individual’s contribution to onward transmission. Accounting for changes in social contact mobility is imperative in order to get a more accurate understanding of DENV transmission.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ankush Kumar

BACKGROUND COVID-19 pandemic is a global concern, due to its high spreading and alarming fatality rate. Mathematical models can play a decisive role in mitigating the spread and predicting the growth of the epidemic. India is a large country, with a highly variable inter-state mobility, and dynamically varying infection cases in different locations; thus, the existing models, based solely on the aspects of growth rates, or generalized network concepts, may not provide desired predictions. The internal mobility of a country must be considered, for accurate prediction. OBJECTIVE This study aims to propose a framework for predicting the geographical spread of COVID-19 based on human mobility, by incorporating migration and transport statistics. The motivation of the research is to identify the locations, which can be at higher level COVID -19 spread risk, during migrants transfer and transportation activities. METHODS We use reported COVID-19 cases, census migration data, and monthly airline data of passengers. RESULTS We discover that spreading depends on the spatial distribution of existing cases, human mobility patterns, and administrative decisions. In India, the mobility towards professional sites can surge incoming cases at Maharastra and Karnataka, while migration towards the native places can risk Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. We anticipate that the state Kerala, with one of the highest cases of COVID-19, may not receive significant incoming cases, while Karnataka and Haryana may receive the challenge of high incoming cases, with medium cases so far. Using airline passenger's data, we also estimate the number of potential incoming cases at various airports. The study predicts that the airports located in the region of north India are vulnerable, whereas in the northeast India and in some south India are relatively safe. CONCLUSIONS A model is developed for systematically understanding the effect of migration and transport on the spreading of COVID-19, and predetermining the hotspots on real time basis. Through the model, we identified the airports and states that are at higher level of COVID-19 risk. The study can guide policymakers in prior planning of transport and estimate the required medical and quarantine facilities to minimize the impact of COVID-19.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carlos Pérez Arroyo ◽  
Jérôme Dombard ◽  
Florent Duchaine ◽  
Laurent Gicquel ◽  
Nicolas Odier

Abstract Optimizing the design of aviation propulsion systems using computational fluid dynamics is essential to increase their efficiency and reduce pollutant as well as noise emissions. Nowadays, this design process is increasingly aided by computational fluid dynamic methods for which and with the adequate modeling approach it is possible to perform meaningful unsteady computations of the various components of a gas-turbine engine. However, these simulations are often carried out independently of each other and only share averaged quantities at the component interfaces minimizing the impact and interactions between components. The present work investigates the interactions between fan, compressor and annular combustion chamber at takeoff conditions by simulating a 360 azimuthal degrees large-eddy simulation of over 2100 million cells of the DGEN-380 demonstrator. In that case, the domain includes: 14 fan blades; 42 outlet-guide vanes (OGV); the impeller with 11 main blades and 11 splitter blades; a radial and an axial diffuser with 22 and 55 vanes, respectively; and the annular combustion chamber with a contouring casing and 13 swirlers on the back of the chamber. At take-off conditions it is found that the compressor operates in transonic conditions in the rotating frame of reference of the impeller and a shock is formed at the leading edge of the main blades which propagates upstream towards the fan and it is perceived at half the impeller blade-passing frequency (BPF). Preliminary results also show that pressure fluctuations at the impeller BPF generated by the interaction of the impeller blades with the diffuser vanes are propagated through the axial diffuser and enter the combustion chamber through the dilution holes and the swirler. The objective of this paper is to provide a deeper analysis of the interactions between components through the use of the novel operator-based analysis called dynamic mode tracking method (DMT). Indeed, this method facilitates the analysis of three-dimensional results despite the billion-size mesh and the complexity of the simulation, since it extracts modes at specific frequencies on-the-fly within the code. The frequencies corresponding to the fan, impeller and half the impeller BPF are analyzed in the domain and compared against traditional and more computationally demanding methods like the well-known Dynamic Mode Decomposition or the Direct Fourier transform.


2020 ◽  
Vol 28 (04) ◽  
pp. 815-837
Author(s):  
KLOT PATANARAPEELERT

The impact of human mobility on the spreading of disease in a metapopulation is emphasized on interconnecting between patches, whereas the current volume of movement within the local population is usually neglected. Here, the role of internal commuters is taken into account by two means, a local transmission rate and the volume of internal commuters. Dynamic model of human mobility in the metapopulation with gravity coupling is presented. In conjunction with the disease spreading, the impact on invasion threshold and epidemic final size are analyzed. For two-patch model, we show that under fixing parameters in gravity model, the existence of invasion threshold depends on the difference of local transmission rates and the proportion of internal commuters between two patches. For a fully connected network with an identical transmission rate, the difference in patch final sizes is driven by patch distribution of internal commuters. By neglecting the effect of spatial variation in a simple core–satellite model, we show that the heterogeneity of internal commuters and gravity coupling induce a complex pattern of threshold, which depend mostly on the exponent in gravity model, and are responsible for the differences among local epidemic sizes.


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