Clustering of countries based on the associated social contact patterns in epidemiological modelling. (arXiv:2211.06426v1 [q-bio.QM])

Mathematical models have been used to understand the spread patterns of
infectious diseases such as Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The
transmission component of the models can be modelled in an age-dependent manner
via introducing contact matrix for the population, which describes the contact
rates between the age groups. Since social contact patterns vary from country
to country, we can compare and group the countries using the corresponding
contact matrices. In this paper, we present a framework for clustering
countries based on their contact matrices with respect to an underlying
epidemic model. Since the pipeline is generic and modular, we demonstrate its
application in a COVID-19 model from R”ost et. al. which gives a hint about
which countries can be compared in a pandemic situation, when only
non-pharmaceutical interventions are available.