![]() More generally, a large body of scientific literature exists on collective behaviors that epidemic models still do not fully address 8, 9 and the case of the COVID-19 pandemic makes no exception 10, 11. It is probably safe to assume that a combination of several factors is at play in what appears in many cases a recurrent pattern: generalized strict social distancing has proved to be unattainable during the declining epidemic phase, even in presence of unsafe contagion rates. ![]() Most likely reasons for ephemeral groups formation could be the increasing psychological fatigue in complying with rules of social isolation following a period of compulsory seclusion and deprivation of social gatherings and activities 3, 4, 5, distrust in health authorities and decay in risk awareness 6, socio-economic disparities 7, or seasonality effects like amenable weather conditions favoring gatherings in public places. This spontaneous behavior, seemingly anticipating the decisions of health authorities, has effects that make the epidemic dynamics in the declining part a co-evolutionary process with a rich behavioral component still largely unaccounted in research. The model takes inspiration from what we learned during the COVID-19 pandemic: increased urban mobility and gatherings have been observed not just as a consequence of the decision of health authorities to remove social restrictions instead the phenomena has been documented starting right after the peak of the infection and increasing while approaching the lifting of social restrictions 2. In this work, we study the effects of the spontaneous formation of ephemeral groups during the declining part of a SIR-type propagation process 1 and the possibility that those temporary groups could ignite a new propagation dynamic. A conclusion is that agent-group dynamic models may represent a powerful approach for modelers and a promising new direction for future research in models of coevolution between propagation and behavior in society. Our findings indicate that a mesoscopic construct like the ephemeral group, based on assumptions about social behavior and absent any microscopic level change, could produce and describe complex propagation dynamics. A Null Model analysis disclosed a pattern in the difference between the group and random models, varying with the size of groups. ![]() An efficiency metric is introduced to compare the different cases. ![]() Results revealed the existence of complex dynamics and multiple behaviors. The experiments simulated 160 model configurations and produced results describing cases of consecutive and non-consecutive dynamic grouping, bounded or unbounded in the number of repetitions. In particular, we focus on ephemeral groups that dynamically form, create new links, and dissolve. On the contrary, we adopted a mesoscale perspective with groups as the core element and in this sense we present a novel agent-group dynamic model of propagation in networks. In network models of propagation processes, the individual, microscopic level perspective is the norm, with aggregations studied as possible outcomes.
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