Calculation of Epidemic First Passage and Peak Time Probability Distributions

DOI10.1137/23M1548049MaRDI QIDQ6423639zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Jacob Curran-Sebastian, Lorenzo Pellis, Ian M. Hall, Thomas House

Publication date 17 January 2023

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1137/23M1548049

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Applications of Brownian motions and diffusion theory (population genetics, absorption problems, etc.) (60J70) Branching processes (Galton-Watson, birth-and-death, etc.) (60J80) Applications of branching processes (60J85) Epidemiology (92D30)

Abstract: Understanding the timing of the peak of a disease outbreak forms an important part of epidemic forecasting. In many cases, such information is essential for planning increased hospital bed demand and for designing of public health interventions. The time taken for an outbreak to become large is inherently stochastic, and therefore uncertain, but after a sufficient number of infections has been reached the subsequent dynamics can be modelled accurately using ordinary differential equations. Here, we present analytical and numerical methods for approximating the time at which a stochastic model of a disease outbreak reaches a large number of cases and for quantifying the uncertainty arising from demographic stochasticity around that time. We then project this uncertainty forwards in time using an ordinary differential equation model in order to obtain a distribution for the peak timing of the epidemic that agrees closely with large simulations but that, for error tolerances relevant to most realistic applications, requires a fraction of the computational cost of full Monte Carlo approaches.

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Cited in

(4)

• Temporal and probabilistic comparisons of epidemic interventions
• Computation of random time-shift distributions for stochastic population models
• Probability of extinction and peak time for multi-type epidemics with application to COVID-19 variants of concern
• Modelling the stochastic importation dynamics and establishment of novel pathogenic strains using a general branching processes framework

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