On the quasi-stationary distribution of the stochastic logistic epidemic (Q1807237)

The author examines the detailed behaviour of the distribution of the time to extinction and of the quasi-stationary distribution of a stochastic SIS epidemic, for values of the threshold parameter \(R_0\) which are close to 1: \(R_0=1 +\rho N^{-1/2}\), where \(N\) is the population size. The approximations obtained, for \(N=1000\) and \(|\rho |<3\), are pleasingly accurate. The arguments are largely analytic, being based on the known recurrence formulae for birth and death processes.