Size of Outbreaks Near the Epidemic Threshold
Populations and Evolution
2007-05-23 v1 Statistical Mechanics
Probability
Abstract
The spread of infectious diseases near the epidemic threshold is investigated. Scaling laws for the size and the duration of outbreaks originating from a single infected individual in a large susceptible population are obtained. The maximal size of an outbreak n_* scales as N^{2/3} with N the population size. This scaling law implies that the average outbreak size <n> scales as N^{1/3}. Moreover, the maximal and the average duration of an outbreak grow as t_* ~ N^{1/3} and <t> ~ ln N, respectively.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.q-bio/0402001,
title = {Size of Outbreaks Near the Epidemic Threshold},
author = {E. Ben-Naim and P. L. Krapivsky},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:q-bio/0402001},
year = {2007}
}
Comments
4 pages, 5 figures