Infected: Understanding the Spread of Disease
Contagious diseases threaten human populations. Acting essentially as viruses with legs, zombies wreak havoc in movies like World War Z, I am Legend, and 28 Days Later. Have you ever wondered how the Centers for Disease Control or a medical professional always seems to swoop in and provide much needed intelligence about the spread of the disease in those films? There is a real-life branch of science, Mathematical Epidemiology, where mathematical models for the spread of disease are created and analyzed in order to help one understand epidemics. One well-known example of such a model is the S-I-R model for infectious disease.
The focus of this talk is to introduce the S-I-R model with an aim of understanding how it can be created based on real-life observations and how it can be used to inform people’s decisions about the control of contagious disease.
Date/Time: Thursday, November 16 from 4-5:30pm
Location: Vini 212