1303.4504 (Byungjoon Min et al.)

Absence of epidemic outbreaks with heavy-tailed contact dynamics    [PDF]

Byungjoon Min, K. -I. Goh, I. -M. Kim

We study the epidemic spreading process following contact dynamics with heavy-tailed waiting time distributions. We show both analytically and numerically that the temporal heterogeneity of contact dynamics can significantly suppress the disease's transmissibility, hence the size of epidemic outbreak, obstructing the spreading process. Furthermore, when the temporal heterogeneity is strong enough, one obtains the vanishing transmissibility, hence the lack of epidemic outbreaks for any finite recovery time, the condition of which was derived.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.4504