The Power of the Influenza Network
The Influenza or ‘flu’ is one of the most widespread and commonly found epidemics in the United States. The flu is caused by a person’s interaction with a number of viruses — primarily the influenza virus. These viruses are airborne and can enter the body through the nostrils or mouth. Surveys have shown that around 5%-20% of people in the United States contract the flu every year. [Source: http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/disease.htm]
Quite literally announcing it’s arrival with relentless sneezes around the beginning of December and lasting all the way till the beginning of March, influenza spares no one. Its high transmission rate is largely down to its spread through a network — it is a highly contagious disease that can spread from person to person quite easily. It’s possible to get the flu simply by breathing the same air as an affected victim. The symptoms include high fever, a sore throat, headaches, cough and overall bodily weakness.
We can draw parallels between the friendship graphs drawn in lecture and the Influenza network. We can imagine a graph with person A (carrying the flu) in the middle, connected to all the people that he or she has been around recently. Those people, further, are connected to the people that they have been around recently. All of these friends of friends are thus only two steps away from A, despite not necessarily even knowing A. In other words, we all can be just two degrees of separation/transmission away from the flu, even if none of our own close friends are carrying it. This sums up the powerful nature of the flu network; the number of people that it can reach increases exponentially whenever it is transmitted to a new victim.
The flu has an immensely solid network, as it easily makes its way around all humans, age, fitness and immunity no bar. Just a week ago, I was bedridden for days, as I had contracted the flu from one of my peers. The morning I finally got the strength to get out of my bed and take on the day, I came back to my suite only to find my roommate sneezing so much that her eyes were watering! Slowly and steadily, my whole suite seemed to have contracted the monstrosity. Although flu shots are readily available, it is rather difficult to completely escape the wide grasp of it. It has even proved to be fatal in the case of some adults and infants.
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm
https://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/flu.html