Dynamics of simultaneous propagation of two COVID-19 strains

• Published in: Advances in continuous and discrete models Vol. 2025; no. 1; p. 45
• Main Authors: Borah, Padma Bhushan, Dehingia, Kaushik, Sarmah, Hemanta Kr, Emadifar, Homan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.12.2025; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Biomathematical Modelling and Stochastic Analysis; COVID-19 vaccines; Difference and Functional Equations; Disease transmission; Functional Analysis; Immunity (Disease); Infections; Mathematical models; Mathematics; Mathematics and Statistics; Matrix methods; Mutation; Ordinary Differential Equations; Pandemics; Partial Differential Equations; Propagation; Quarantine; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2; Viruses; COVID-19; 37M10; Basic reproduction number; Compartmental model; Numerical simulations; Stability; 92B05; 37N25; 37M05
• ISSN: 1687-1839; 2731-4235; 1687-1847
• DOI: 10.1186/s13662-025-03901-3

In this work, we present a mathematical framework that captures the dynamic behavior of the simultaneous propagation of two strains of COVID-19. We apply the next-generation matrix method to compute the basic reproduction ratio R 0 . We investigate the stability of the model at each of the feasible equilibria. To validate our theoretical results, we have conducted numerical simulations. It is observed that if R 0 ≤ 1 , eventually there will be no disease. However, if R 0 > 1 , a competition between the two COVID-19 strains will occur, and the more infectious variant will survive while the other disappears.