Geometric characterization of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic events

Abstract

While the SARS-CoV-2 keeps spreading world-wide, comparing its evolution across different nations is a timely challenge of both theoretical and practical importance. The large variety of dissimilar and country-dependent epidemiological factors, in fact, makes extremely difficult to understand their influence on the epidemic trends within a unique and coherent framework. We present a geometric framework to characterize, in an integrated and low-dimensional fashion, the epidemic plume-like trajectories traced by the infection rate, $I$, and the fatality rate, $D$, in the $(I,D)$ plane. Our analysis enables the definition of an epidemiometric system based on three geometric observables rating the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic events via scales analogous to those for the magnitude and the intensity of seismic events. Being exquisitely geometric, our framework can be applied to classify other epidemic data and secondary waves, raising the possibility of designing epidemic alerts or early warning systems to enhance public and governmental responses to a rapidly emerging outbreak.

arXiv comment14 pages, 10 figures, 1 table

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