Ostwald Growth Rate in Controlled Covid-19 Epidemic Spreading as in Arrested Growth in Quantum Complex Matter

• Main Authors: Antonio Bianconi, Augusto Marcelli, Gaetano Campi, Andrea Perali
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2020-03-01
• Series: Condensed Matter
• Subjects: Covid-19; epidemic control policies; biophysical approach; Ostwald arrested growth; big data analysis; success s factor
• Online Access: https://www.mdpi.com/2410-3896/5/2/23

Here, we focus on the data analysis of the growth of epidemic spread of Covid-19 in countries where different policies of containment were activated. It is known that the growth of pandemic spread at its threshold is exponential, but it is not known how to quantify the success of different containment policies. We identify that a successful approach gives an arrested phase regime following the Ostwald growth, where, over the course of time, one phase transforms into another metastable phase with a similar free energy as observed in oxygen interstitial diffusion in quantum complex matter and in crystallization of proteins. We introduce the s factor which provides a quantitative measure of the efficiency and speed of the adopted containment policy, which is very helpful not only to monitor the Covid-19 pandemic spread but also for other countries to choose the best containment policy. The results show that a policy based on joint confinement, targeted tests, and tracking positive cases is the most rapid pandemic containment policy; in fact, we found values of 9, 5, and 31 for the success s factor for China, South Korea, and Italy, respectively, where the lowest s factor indicates the best containment policy.