ArticleMathematical biosciences2018
Epidemic as a natural process.
Article in Mathematical biosciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Evolution expresses the second law of thermodynamics in action.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2026Article
- A Century of Mathematical Epidemiology: A Bibliometric Analysis and Visualization of Research Trends.Cureus · 2024Review
- Contribution to COVID-19 spread modelling: a physical phenomenological dissipative formalism.Biomechanics and modeling in mechanobiology · 2021Article
- On the Use of Entropy Issues to Evaluate and Control the Transients in Some Epidemic Models.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
- On the Entropy of Events under Eventually Global Inflated or Deflated Probability Constraints. Application to the Supervision of Epidemic Models under Vaccination Controls.Entropy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Mathematical epidemiology is a well-recognized discipline to model infectious diseases. It also provides guidance for public health officials to limit outbreaks. Nevertheless, epidemics take societies by surprise every now and then, for example, when the Ebola virus epidemic raged seemingly unrestrained in Western Africa. We provide insight to this capricious character of nature by describing the epidemic as a natural process, i.e., a phenomenon governed by thermodynamics. Our account, based on statistical mechanics of open systems, clarifies that it is impossible to predict accurately epidemic courses because everything depends on everything else. Nonetheless, the thermodynamic theory yields a comprehensive and analytical view of the epidemic. The tenet subsumes various processes in a scale-free manner from the molecular to the societal levels. The holistic view accentuates overarching procedures in arresting and eradicating epidemics.
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