COVID-19 peaks reflect time-dependent social activity, not herd immunity

(Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have developed a new mathematical model for predicting how epidemics such as COVID-19 spread. This model not only accounts for individuals' varying biological susceptibility to infection but also their levels of social activity, which naturally change over time.