The Role of Geographic Spreaders in Infectious Pattern Formation and Front Propagation Speeds

Abstract

The pattern formation and spatial spread of infectious populations are investigated using a kernel-based Susceptible-Infectious-Recovered (SIR) model applicable across a wide range of basic reproduction numbers $R_o$. The focus is on the role of geographic spreaders defined here as a portion of the infected population ($ϕ$) experiencing high mobility between identical communities. The spatial organization of the infected population and invasive front speeds ($c_{max}$) are determined when the infections are randomly initiated in space within multiple communities. For small but finite $ϕ$, scaling analysis in 1-dimension and simulation results in 2-dimensions suggest that $c_{max}\sim (1-ϕ) γ(R_o-1) σ$, where $γ$ is the inverse of the infectious duration, and $σ^2$ is the variance of the spatial kernel describing mobility of long-distance spreaders across communities. Hence, $c_{max}$ is not significantly affected by the small $ϕ$ though reductions in $ϕ$ act as retardation factors to the attainment of $c_{max}$. The $σ$ determines the spatial organization of infections across communities. When $σ>5dr$ (long-distance mobility, where $dr$ is the minimum spatial extent defining adjacent communities), the infectious population will experience a transient but spatially coherent pattern with a wavelength that can be derived from the spreading kernel properties.