The Physics of Epidemic/Pandemic Spread

David Newman

Physics Dept./GI UAF

The current COVID-19 pandemic is a classic network spread problem. We will discuss the parameters often discussed in the news (spread rate, R0, social distancing etc) and how they can be understood in terms of Physics models (network systems, percolation theory). This will be an overview of the dynamics (ie what we can expect) of such a system from a complex systems physics point of view. We will be using Zoom exclusively (link at the bottom) for this Journal club and it will be a test for future Journal club talks to see if people attend and it works sufficiently well.