This is the blog for GW students taking Human Evolutionary Genetics. This site is for posting interesting tidbits on: the patterns and processes of human genetic variation;human origins and migration; molecular adaptations to environment, lifestyle and disease; ancient and forensic DNA analyses; and genealogical reconstructions.

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Tuesday, April 14, 2020

Math shows how human behavior spreads infectious diseases




As we all continue to stay home because of covid-19, the pandemic demonstrates how our social behaviours could have major impact on the outbreak and transmission of infectious diseases. In this article, the authors criticizes the current prediction model for infectious disease. "We tend to treat disease systems in isolation from social systems, and we don't often think about how they connect to each other, or influence each other," said Chris Bauch, co-author of the paper. The new model developed by the team includes dynamic social interactions to the models already used for disease outbreaks and evolution. This model can help better anticipate how the viral strain emerge and react based on human responses to the outbreak.

Shown by the coronavirus, infectious diseases have the ability to evolve and move quicker than we can anticipate because of social behaviours. Adapting a new model to look at the spread of diseases could help public health workers better understand and respond to newly-emerged virus infections. 

Math shows how human behavior spreads infectious diseases
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/08/180816081446.htm

Monica Cheung– April 14, 2020


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