Economists modify a SIR model with a spatial and also behavioral dimension

We simulate a spatial behavioral model of the diffusion of an infection to understand the role of geographical characteristics: the number and distribution of outbreaks, population size, density, and agents’ movements. We show that several invariance properties of the SIR model with respect to these variables do not hold when agents are placed in a (two dimensional) geographical space. Indeed, local herd immunity plays a fundamental role in changing the dynamics of the infection. We also show that geographical factors affect how behavioral responses affect the epidemics. We derive relevant implications for the estimation of epidemiological models with panel data from several geographical units.

That is from a new paper by Alberto Bisin and Andrea Moro.  Here is a good sentence from the accompanying and descriptive tweet storm:

In Spatial-SIR, local herd immunity slows contagion initially in the less dense city, but faster global herd immunity slows it in the denser city later

I think this means West Virginia is in for some hard times fairly soon.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed