Category: Epidemiology

Summary: Testing whether a temporary dormant compartment enlarges a reactive-but-stable epidemic window only when source-sink asymmetry and commuter hubs appear together.

Metapopulation epidemic models can be linearly stable overall while still showing strong transient growth after disturbance, especially when patches differ sharply in quality and connectivity. This experiment asks whether adding a temporary dormant compartment creates a wider reactive-but-stable regime specifically when strong source-sink asymmetry coincides with hub-like commuter structure.

The model studies a linearized epidemic system with heterogeneity in patch roles, commuting, and dormancy. By comparing combinations of these ingredients, the experiment looks for a trap-like regime in which dormancy changes short-run amplification even though the long-run stability classification remains unchanged.

That is useful because dormancy-like compartments are often interpreted only through persistence or delay. Here the focus is on transient response, and on whether multiple structural asymmetries must cooperate before dormancy meaningfully changes it.

Method: Linearized metapopulation epidemic calculations comparing transient amplification across source-sink asymmetry, commuter-hub structure, and temporary dormancy conditions.

What is measured: Reactivity, stable-versus-reactive classification, dormancy-induced widening of the reactive window, and dependence on source-sink and hub structure.