Chemotaxis-inspired PDE models of airborne infectious disease transmission: epidemiologically-motivated mathematical and numerical analyses

Abstract

Partial differential equation (PDE) models for infectious diseases, while less common than their ordinary differential equation (ODE) counterparts, have found successful applications for many years. Such models are typically of reaction-diffusion type, and model spatial propagation as a diffusive process. However, given the complex nature of human mobility, such models are limited in their ability to describe airborne infectious diseases in human populations. Recent work has advocated for the inclusion of an additional chemotaxis-type term as an alternative; spatial propagation of infection fronts is assumed additionally to flow from low-to-high concentrations of susceptible populations. The present work extends the study of such models by providing an epidemiologically interpretable analysis, directly connecting model behavior to information readily available to policymakers. In particular, we derive a spatially-aware basic reproduction number, which accounts for spatial heterogeneity in population density. Furthermore, we discuss several important aspects concerning the numerical solution of the model, including the introduction of a stabilization scheme. Finally, we perform a series of simulation studies in the Italian region of Lombardy (severely affected by the COVID-19 outbreak in 2020) and in the US state of Georgia, in which we demonstrate the model's potential to better capture important spatiotemporal dynamics observed in real-world data compared to pure reaction-diffusion models.