Professor of Astrakhan State University Talks about Models of Epidemic Spread

Head of the Research Laboratory “Mathematical Modeling & ICT in Science & Education”, Dr. Sci. in Physics and Mathematics, Prof. Yuri Tarasevich held a webinar “Epidemic Spread Modeling” on July, 27 at the Boiling Point Centre of Astrakhan State University.

The scientist talked about the history of appearance and types of infection spread models, their connection with the models of innovation diffusion and spread of rumors, panics and excitable media. The professor notes that epidemic models have been popular over the last decades. An interest to them has grown due to the COVID-19 spread. According to Yuri Tarasevich, the number of publications on this issue has dramatically grown over the last six months.

As the professor says, different models should be applied for addressing different tasks. If we consider the epidemic spread across a dense-population territory, it is better to use models that are described with ordinary differential equations. Percolation models are good for describing the spread of plant diseases on plantations, while network models are efficient for analysis of the effects connected with social relations and people’s individual features.

After the lecture, the professor answered some questions of the online meeting participants.