The social dynamics of COVID-19

Thomas Lux

doi:10.1016/j.physa.2020.125710

The social dynamics of COVID-19

Physica A. 2021 Apr 1:567:125710. doi: 10.1016/j.physa.2020.125710. Epub 2021 Jan 2.

Author

Thomas Lux¹

Affiliation

¹ Department of Economics, University of Kiel, Olshausenstr. 40, 24118 Kiel, Germany.

Abstract

We add a simple dynamic process for adaptive "social distancing" measures to a standard SIR model of the COVID pandemic. With a limited attention span and in the absence of a consistent long-term strategy against the pandemic, this process leads to a sweeping of an instability, i.e. fluctuations in the effective reproduction number around its bifurcation value of $R_{e f f} = 1$ . While mitigating the pandemic in the short-run, this process remains intrinsically fragile and does not constitute a sustainable strategy that societies could follow for an extended period of time.

Keywords: COVID pandemic; SIR model; Social interaction.