Epidemic dynamics and spatial segregation driven by cognitive diffusion and nonlinear incidence

Abstract

AbstractWe propose susceptible‐infected‐susceptible epidemic reaction–diffusion models with cognitive movement and nonlinear incidence in a spatially heterogeneous environment. The cognitive dispersal term takes either random diffusion or symmetric diffusion. Building upon the ‐estimates of positive solutions under , we state the asymptotic dynamics for , . The numerical results reveal spatial segregation of susceptible and infected populations: (a) the heterogeneous random diffusion can segregate the population and reduce the infection fraction significantly; (b) the segregation phenomenon disappears as the ratio approaches one from below; (c) the disease‐free region strengthens the segregation induced by heterogeneous random diffusion; (d) the segregation governed by random diffusion is more sensitive to the incidence mechanism; (e) the distribution of steady states driven by symmetric diffusion is always similar to that by homogeneous diffusion.