Dynamics of SIR model with heterogeneous response to intervention policy

Rachinskii, Dmitrii; Rouf, Samiha

We study dynamics of a variant of the SIR the model, where we assume that individuals respond differently to dynamics of the epidemic. Their heterogeneous response is modeled by the Preisach hysteresis operator. The degree of heterogeneity of the response is measured by the variance $\sigma^2$ of the corresponding distribution (the Preisach density function). The proposed model has a continuum of endemic equilibrium states characterized by different proportions of susceptible, infected and recovered populations. We consider how the limit point of the epidemic trajectory and the infection peak along this trajectory depend on $\sigma$. The heterogeneous model is compared to the the switched model with an ideally uniform response corresponding to $\sigma=0$.