Front dynamics in fractional-order epidemic models

Hanert, Emmanuel [UCL] Schumacher, Eva [UCL] Deleersnijder, Eric [UCL]

A number of recent studies suggest that human and animal mobility patterns exhibit scale-free, Lévy-flight dynamics. However, current reaction-diffusion epidemics models do not account for the superdiffusive spread of modern epidemics due to Lévy flights. We have developed a SIR model to simulate the spatial spread of a hypothetical epidemic driven by long-range displacements in the infective and susceptible populations. The model has been obtained by replacing the second-order diffusion operator by a fractional-order operator. Theoretical developments and numerical simulations show that fractional-order diffusion leads to an exponential acceleration of the epidemic's front and a power-law decay of the front's leading tail. Our results indicate the potential of fractional-order reaction-diffusion models to represent modern epidemics.