The functional mechanism of
epidemics and pandemics -
as causally consecutive processes

Ewald Gerth

Abstract

2019/2020 - Epidemic and Pandemic
A viral disease that appeared in a limited area of China in 2019 grew into a pandemic in 2020 and spread across the world.
Pandemics are developments with changes and consequences for the life and health of the population, for society, economy, culture and education, for international trade and tourism, - ...
The spread of a pandemic is a causally consecutive process - that is: going forward in matter, space, and time.
The transmission of an infection takes place statistically via individuals according to the probability determined by the transition magnitudes.
The analysis of pandemics is founded on the process theory.
The epidemic/pandemic is a complex of many processes arranged in series of qualitatively different stages. The transition magnitudes between the stages are determined by transfer of infection, disease, contamination, feedback, - ...
Processes are the dynamic deconvolution of the static network of functionally coupled potential reaction components.
A process is always embedded in an environment of parallel processes with which it is in a functional exchange.
Processes constitute a hierarchy. In addition to the main process, there are subordinate and superordinate processes that are linked to one another.
For description, investigation, and calculation of the functional mechanism the considered processes have to be reduced to the main relations.
The analysis of the reduced reaction system of consecutive processes reveals a number of phenomena that would be lost in the complex system, e. g.: coupling, feedback, periodic excitation, oscillation system, stationary oscillations, interference and focussing, second wave, freak waves, non-commutativity, phase shift, ...
Processes are ordered in time. The point in time of a change in the course of the process determines the result.
The process that takes place in a certain period of time has a history and an after-effect.
The course of processes can be overlaid by pulse-like or periodic changes in the transition variables.

For the calculation of processes, a flow diagram with the causally coupled stages and the associated transition variables is designed.
A system of equations is set up, which is solved with a computer program. The results are graphically displayed as progress curves of the components involved in the process.
Examples of the calculation and graphical representation of different variants of the epidemic/pandemic process are described:
    www.ewald-gerth.de/pandemic.pdf

Last update: 2021, October 19st