A markovian random walk model of epidemic spreading

Bestehorn, Michael; Riascos, Alejandro P.; Michelitsch, Thomas M.; Collet, Bernard A.

We analyze the dynamics of a population of independent random walkers on a graph and develop a simple model of epidemic spreading. We assume that each walker visits independently the nodes of a finite ergodic graph in a discrete-time markovian walk governed by his specific transition matrix. With this assumption, we first derive an upper bound for the reproduction numbers. Then we assume that a walker is in one of the states: susceptible, infectious, or recovered. An infectious walker remains infectious during a certain characteristic time. If an infectious walker meets a susceptible one on the same node there is a certain probability for the susceptible walker to get infected. By implementing this hypothesis in computer simulations we study the space-time evolution of the emerging infection patterns. Generally, random walk approaches seem to have a large potential to study epidemic spreading and to identify the pertinent parameters in epidemic dynamics.