Monotonicity of asymptotic outbreak size for short-period infection rates

Let A[0,1)A\in [0,1), ω>0\omega>0 and δ[0,1]\delta\in[0,1]. Define

βt=1+Asin((t+δω)2π/ω).\beta_t=1+A\sin((t+\delta \omega) 2\pi/\omega).

Short-period monotonicity conjecture. There exists ωˉ>0\bar{\omega}>0 such that, for all ω<ωˉ\omega<\bar{\omega}, the asymptotic outbreak size 1s()()1-s^{(\infty)}(\infty) is decreasing in AA.

This conjecture concerns periodic infection rates with fixed recovery rate ρ1\rho\equiv 1. It formalizes the observed numerical decrease of outbreak size with infection-rate amplitude when the period is sufficiently short; the statement is left for future investigation.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Juniper Cocomello and Kavita Ramanan, “Exact description of limiting SIR and SEIR dynamics on locally tree-like graphs”, arXiv:2309.08829 (2023).

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