Poisson structures and dynamics of SIR models (Q6895915)

The authors examine SIR (susceptible-infective-recovered) models, nonlinear models of dynamical equations modeling the epidemiology of infectious disease spread in a population. They consider a Hamiltonian structure for a modified SIR system where recovered patients are removed from the population. They wish to get an exact analytical solution of the compartmental epidemiological model in closed form. They find that that the populations \(S(t)\) and \(R(t)\) of susceptible and recovered individuals are generalized logistic functions, while the infected individuals \(I(t)\) are described by a logistic function times an exponential. All of these have the same characteristic time.\N\NThe authors analyze the dynamics of a modified SIR system and provide exact computations of the quantities that are relevant to epidemiological contexts. The main differences between the original SIR system and the modified ones are explored and described using the zeros of their respective conserved quantities. The work here follows [the first author et al., Phys. D 413, Article ID 132656, 18p. (2020; Zbl 1485.92111)].\N\NThe modified SIR system discussed here is as follows: \(\dot{S} = \frac {\beta SI}{S+I}\), \(\dot{I} = \frac {\beta SI}{S+I}\), and \(\dot{R} = \alpha I\), where \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are positive real numbers. This is a generalization of the standard SIR model for which recovered individuals are removed from the population.