Year: 2011
Type: article
Abstract: We study the critical effect of quarantine on the propagation of epidemics on an adaptive network of social contacts. For this purpose, we analyze the susceptible-infected-recovered model in the presence of quarantine, where susceptible individuals protect themselves by disconnecting their links to infected neighbors with probability $w$ and reconnecting them to other susceptible individuals chosen at random. Starting from a single infected individual, we show by an analytical approach and simulations that there is a phase transition at a critical rewiring (quarantine) threshold ${w}_{c}$ separating a phase ($w<{w}_{c}$) where the disease reaches a large fraction of the population from a phase ($w\ensuremath{\geqslant}{w}_{c}$) where the disease does not spread out. We find that in our model the topology of the network strongly affects the size of the propagation and that ${w}_{c}$ increases with the mean degree and heterogeneity of the network. We also find that ${w}_{c}$ is reduced if we perform a preferential rewiring, in which the rewiring probability is proportional to the degree of infected nodes.
Source: Physical Review E
Language: English
Subfield: Statistical and Nonlinear Physics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W1779397635