Impact of travel restrictions on the
spread of infection

2022

With the outbreak of Covid-19 it has become more important to know how

to deal with a large scale epidemic effectively. Governments utilize different

methods to try and contain the spread of viruses, to different results. But what

does modeling say about the way to approach the problem? The purpose of

the thesis is to introduce a modification of a popular SIR model for the spread

of infectious diseases which allows to explore the impact of travel. The group

of susceptible individuals S is split into two subgroups in accordance with the

travel patterns: S1 (traveling individuals) and S2 (not traveling individuals).

Stability properties of infection-free and endemic equilibria are studied with

respect to the basic reproduction number. Numerous numerical simulations

illustrate the dynamics of the system, including its modifications based on the

introduction of the delayed argument. The results of the theoretical analysis

and numerical simulations are compared to the recent empirical data to provide

practical advice to local and governmental policy makers.

University of Agder