The influence of accidental physical contacts between individuals on viral infection

Abstract

Abstract The paper is devoted to the results of numerical modelling of non-stationary effects during the spread of a viral infection in a small group of individuals. We are considering the case of the spread of a viral infection by airborne droplets. Two consecutive stages of infection of the body are considered. At the first stage, virions enter the lungs and as a result of viremia are transported to the affected organs. In the second stage, the virions actively replicate in the affected organs. Random movement of individuals in the group changes the local concentration of virions near the selected individual. The random level of virion concentration may be greater than a certain critical value after which the infection of the selected individual will go into an irreversible stage. The main purpose of our work is to illustrate qualitatively new effects that occur in nonlinear systems in a random environment.