An epidemiological model of spatial coupling for trips longer than the infectious period

One of the standard methods of accounting for inter-population disease spread in equation-based epidemiology models is through a transportation operator. Implicit in the use of the transportation operator, however, is an assumption that daily travel volumes are small compared to overall population sizes, an assumption that can break down for modern rates of international travel or local commuter traffic. Alternative types of coupling have been proposed in the limit that trip durations are much shorter than the infectious period. We present an extension of these phenomenological models that relaxes both assumptions. We show that the approach produces more accurate results when assessing the impact of mitigative actions using modern travel volumes.

► A model of coupling between epidemic subpopulations is proposed.
► It is compared to results obtained using a transportation operator.
► We show that it can be more accurate at assessing the impact of mitigative actions.