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An infection caused by bacteria.

An infection involves invasion and multiplication of an infectious agent in a host. Bacteria are one possible cause; an agent capable of causing disease is a pathogen. The National Cancer Institute defines infection through invasion and growth in the body. ^[ref].

In a SIR model, acquiring infection moves a member of the susceptible compartment into the infectious compartment. That immediate transition is a model assumption: the SEIR model instead includes an exposed stage before infectiousness. Specify these states when translating a biological process into compartmental models.

This generation-based compartmental model replenishes the susceptible compartment by $B>0$ per step and transfers $\alpha S_t{I}_t$ individuals into the next infectious generation. Members of the current infectious compartment leave it after one step. In scaled variables $x=\alpha S$, $y=\alpha I$, $r=\alpha B$, the update is $x^{\prime }=x+r-xy$, $y^{\prime }=xy$.

Its only fixed point is $(S_{\ast },I_{\ast })=(1/\alpha ,B)$. There is no finite disease-free fixed point, since susceptible recruitment continues when $I=0$. The Jacobian matrix at the fixed point is $M=\left(\begin{array}{cc}1-r& -1\\ r& 1\end{array}\right)$, with determinant one and trace $2-r$. For $0<r<4$, its two distinct eigenvalues have modulus one, so the linearized iterates are bounded and oscillatory. At $r=4$, the repeated eigenvalue $-1$ has a nontrivial Jordan block, making generic linearized iterates grow linearly. For $r>4$, one eigenvalue has modulus greater than one.

Thus $0<r<4$ gives neutral linear stability, not asymptotic stability. Unit-modulus multipliers do not determine nonlinear stability. Recruitment can restore susceptibility above $1/\alpha$ after a wave, allowing repeated infection growth; a closed SIR model without replenishment has a different susceptible balance.

An effective reproduction number describes transmission in the current population, accounting for available susceptibility and transmission conditions. The phrase is used with different time conventions, so a definition must specify whether it means an instantaneous reproduction number or a case reproduction number. The CDC uses a time-varying effective quantity $R_t$ to describe the direction of community transmission. ^[ref].

For the closed, homogeneous SIR model with constant $\beta ,\gamma$, the instantaneous convention givesThus the infectious compartment grows when $R_{\mathrm{eff}}>1$ and declines when $R_{\mathrm{eff}}<1$, provided $i>0$. At the SIR infection peak it equals one. This freezes the current susceptible fraction; it does not count a newly infected person's actual future secondary infections while $s$ continues to decrease. The distinction comes directly from the SIR model equations and the two time conventions above.

For frequency-dependent transmission with homogeneous mixing, each member of the susceptible compartment experiences force of infection $\lambda =\beta I/N=\beta i$. Consequently the total flow into the infectious compartment is $\beta SI/N$ people per unit time. The constant $\beta$ combines the contact frequency and the chance that a relevant contact causes infection, and has units of inverse time. Holding the infectious compartment's fraction fixed holds each person's force of infection fixed when $N$ changes. An unnormalized mass-action infection convention instead writes the total flow as $bSI$, where $b=\beta /N$ has units of inverse person-time; these two coefficients must not be confused.

Homogeneous mixing assumes that contacts sample the whole modelled population without differences between groups or locations. In the SIR model, the chance that a sampled contact belongs to the infectious compartment is $i=I/N$. This assumption makes a frequency-dependent transmission rule depend on the overall infectious compartment rather than a graph of individual contacts. Structured contacts require a different mathematical model, such as a discrete SIR epidemic on a graph.

The infectious compartment consists of people currently able to transmit infection. In the closed SIR model, $I(t)$ is their count and $i(t)=I(t)/N$ their fraction of the fixed total $N$. The SIR model has no separate delay between acquiring infection and entering the infectious compartment; the SEIR model adds such a stage.

The susceptible compartment retains $S_t$ individuals, gains $B$ recruits per generation and loses $\alpha S_t{I}_t$ through infection. The mass-action interaction term represents new infections generated by encounters between susceptible and infectious individuals. Those new cases form the next infectious compartment, $I_{t+1}$; the current infectious generation leaves that compartment after one time step.

The initial conditions $S_0,I_0$ specify the starting susceptible and infectious counts. The parameter $\alpha$ is the transmission coefficient in this deterministic approximation, while $B$ supplies new susceptible individuals. This is the discrete susceptible-infective model with recruitment.

For the closed SIR model with $\gamma >0$, the infectious compartment's fraction approaches $i_{\infty }=0$. One proof outline uses the bounded, increasing removed compartment's fraction: since $r(t)-r_0=\gamma {\int }_0^{t}i(u)du$, the total time-integrated $i$ is finite. The bounded derivative $di/dt$ from the SIR model equations prevents indefinitely recurring spikes, so $i(t)$ tends to zero.

For $s_0>0$, the final size relation for an epidemic follows by dividing the SIR model equations for $s$ and $r$ while $i>0$, giving $ds/dr=-(\beta /\gamma )s$. Integration then yieldsThis also follows from the SIR first integral and conservation of population. For the stipulated initial value problem, solveThe bisection method givesAbout $5.88\%$ of the original population remains in the susceptible compartment. The $94.12\%$ is the final removed compartment's fraction, including the initially $1\%$ in the infectious compartment. The newly acquired infection during the modelled period accounts for $s_0-s_{\infty }\approx 0.93120263520$ of the total population, not $1-s_{\infty }$. Dividing by $s_0$ instead gives the proportion of initially susceptible compartment members who acquire infection; its denominator must be stated.

At the SIR infection peak, the flow into the infectious compartment only balances its outflow; it does not stop. Further infection explains why the final susceptible compartment's fraction is well below $1/3$. Also $s_{\infty }=s_0{e}^{-R_0(r_{\infty }-r_0)}>0$ for $s_0>0$ and finite $R_0$: the closed SIR model does not require everybody to acquire infection before its infectious compartment empties in the long-time limit.

If $i_0>0$ and $s_0>\gamma /\beta$, the infectious compartment initially grows. The SIR model equations give its unique later maximum whenBefore this SIR infection peak, $\beta s-\gamma >0$; afterward it is negative because the susceptible compartment keeps shrinking. Substituting $s_{\ast }$ into the SIR first integral givesFor the stipulated initial value problem,Thus about $30.38\%$ of the modelled population belongs to the infectious compartment simultaneously at the SIR infection peak. This is a peak of the infectious compartment, not of incidence, whose flow is $\beta si$. If $s_0\le \gamma /\beta$, the maximum is already $i_0$ at the start and the interior SIR infection peak formula does not apply.

The numerical solution of a differential equation puts the SIR infection peak at about day $26.63258$ with $i\approx 0.303812682386$, agreeing with the SIR first integral to within $10^{-11}$. The accompanying generator checks nonnegative fractions and conservation of population without clipping or rescaling. For steps $0.4$, $0.2$ and $0.1$ day, the largest differences between successive numerical trajectories at shared times are approximately $1.086\times 10^{-7}$ and $6.985\times 10^{-9}$. Their ratio is $15.55$, close to the factor $16$ expected when a fourth-order Runge-Kutta method's step is halved.

The SIR model is a mathematical model of an epidemic that follows three groups: a susceptible compartment whose members can acquire infection, an infectious compartment whose members can pass it on, and a removed compartment whose members neither acquire nor pass on infection. The letters stand for susceptible, infectious and recovered or removed. Here we study the simplest closed, constant-parameter version, with homogeneous mixing and no births, deaths, migration or waning immunity. A person who leaves the infectious compartment never returns to the susceptible compartment in this version.^[ref]

The appeal of the SIR model is that one can explain a rise and fall in the infectious compartment without changing anyone's behavior: fewer opportunities for new infection eventually reverse the growth. The SIR first integral even determines the SIR infection peak without computing its time. These are useful deductions from explicit assumptions. The stipulated numbers below illustrate the mathematical model; they are neither estimates for an actual disease nor a forecast or medical advice.

Kermack and McKendrick's 1927 paper, "A contribution to the mathematical theory of epidemics", in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, is an early foundation for the SIR model. Its DOI is 10.1098/rspa.1927.0118, also recorded in the Royal Society's archive of contemporary referee reports.^[ref][ref]

For frequency-dependent transmission, the closed SIR model is a system of ordinary differential equations for the fractions $s,i,r$:Here $\beta >0$ is the coefficient of frequency-dependent transmission, and $\gamma >0$ is the recovery rate, interpreted more generally as the removal rate. Both have units of inverse time. With a constant recovery rate, the associated individual time in the infectious compartment has an exponential distribution with mean $1/\gamma$; the SIR model does not require every person to spend exactly that long there. The fractions themselves have no units.^[ref]

For counts $S=Ns$, $I=Ni$, $R=Nr$, the same SIR model equations readThe factor $1/N$ keeps the same $\beta$ in both descriptions. Dropping it while keeping these units would fail dimensional analysis. Some existing SIR model variants use the unnormalized mass-action infection convention instead, including the SIR susceptible-recovered identity; their coefficient is $b=\beta /N$ in the notation used here.

Adding the SIR model equations gives $d(s+i+r)/dt=0$, a short proof of conservation of population. Nonnegative starting fractions stay nonnegative: the outflow from either the susceptible compartment or the infectious compartment vanishes when that group is empty, while $dr/dt\ge 0$. Thus the susceptible compartment can only shrink and the removed compartment can only grow.

For a concrete initial value problem, stipulateAt the start, the flow into the infectious compartment is $0.3\times 0.99\times 0.01=0.00297$ of the total per day, and the flow into the removed compartment is $0.1\times 0.01=0.00100$ of the total per day. Hence $di/dt=0.00197$ per day. If $N=1000$, these correspond to model rates of $2.97$ and $1.00$ people per day, and net growth $1.97$ people per day. A rate need not be an integer count of events on any particular day.

For this SIR model, the basic reproduction number isIt describes one introduced member of the infectious compartment in an otherwise wholly susceptible compartment. The instantaneous reproduction number at the actual starting state is $R_0{s}_0=2.97$, obtained by freezing the current conditions and the current susceptible compartment's fraction. More generally it is $R_{0}s(t)$ in this SIR model. The basic reproduction number is a ratio of two rates, so it has no units; $r_0$ is a different quantity, the initial removed compartment's fraction.

While $i>0$, its instantaneous relative growth isInitially this equals $0.3\times 0.99-0.1=0.197{\mathrm{day}}^{-1}$. Freezing $s\approx s_0$ gives the early exponential growth approximation $i(t)\approx 0.01e^{0.197t}$ with $t$ measured in days. It must fail as the susceptible compartment shrinks. An epidemic invasion threshold occurs at $R_0{s}_0=1$; if $i_0=0$, the deterministic SIR model stays at $i=0$ even above that threshold.