Predicting the Outbreak Risks and Inflection Points of COVID-19 Pandemic with Classic Ecological Theories.

ABSTRACT: Predicting the outbreak risks and/or the inflection (turning or tipping) points of COVID-19 can be rather challenging. Here, it is addressed by modeling and simulation approaches guided by classic ecological theories and by treating the COVID-19 pandemic as a metapopulation dynamics problem. Three classic ecological theories are harnessed, including TPL (Taylor's power-law) and Ma's population aggregation critical density (PACD) for spatiotemporal aggregation/stability scaling, approximating virus metapopulation dynamics with Hubbell's neutral theory, and Ma's diversity-time relationship adapted for the infection-time relationship. Fisher-Information for detecting critical transitions and tipping points are also attempted. It is discovered that: (i) TPL aggregation/stability scaling parame

SUBMITTER: Ma ZS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7536942 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature