Date/Time
Date(s) - 27/10/2023
3:30 pm - 4:30 pm

Location: HH 305

Speaker: Todd Parsons (Sorbonne Université)

Title: The Persistence of Emerging Pathogens

Abstract:
Deterministic SIR (Susceptible-Infected-Recovered) epidemic models provide textbook examples of systems exhibiting damped oscillations that converge on an equilibrium (endemicity).  Real epidemics, however, sometimes end in burnout of the pathogen: after a major epidemic, when relatively few susceptible individuals remain, stochasticity in individual transmission and recovery results in the extinction of the pathogen.

Since foundational work of M. S. Bartlett in 1960, there has been sustained interest in predicting the probability of burnout as a function of the transmissibility of the pathogen and the size of the host population.  I will present recent work on the problem, which uses coupled deterministic and branching process approximations to obtain highly accurate estimates on the burnout probability.  Time allowing, I will also discuss the implications for viral evolution.

This is joint work with David Earn, Jonathan Dushoff and Ben Bolker

For recording of this colloquium, click here