Graph, Spectra, Control and Epidemics: An Example with a SEIR Model

Abstract

Networks and graphs offer a suitable and powerful framework for studying the spread of infection in human and animal populations. In the case of a heterogeneous population, the social contact network has a pivotal role in the analysis of directly transmitted infectious diseases. The literature presents several works where network-based models encompass realistic features (such as contacts networks or host–pathogen biological data), but analytical results are nonetheless scarce. As a significant example, in this paper, we develop a multi-group version of the epidemiological SEIR population-based model. Each group can represent a social subpopulation with the same habits or a group of geographically localized people. We consider also heterogeneity in the weighting of contacts between two groups. As a simple application, we propose a simple control algorithm in which we optimize the connection weights in order to minimize the combination between an economic cost and a social cost. Some numerical simulations are also provided.