Past exam of the short options course of the University of Oxford / 2017 / 9 / b / iii

Divide the susceptible equation by the removed equation, or differentiate the resulting invariant directly, to get $du/dw=-{\mathcal{R}}_{0}u$. The initial data give the SIR susceptible-recovered identityPopulation conservation then gives $v=1+v_0-w-e^{-{\mathcal{R}}_{0}w}$. Since $w^{\prime }=v$, the Taylor expansion for small ${\mathcal{R}}_{0}w$ yieldsAt the end of the outbreak, the infectious count approaches zero. The positive root of the quadratic approximation isFor ${\mathcal{R}}_0>1$ and a seed satisfying ${\mathcal{R}}_0^2{v}_0\ll ({\mathcal{R}}_0-1{)}^2$, this reduces toThe truncation also requires ${\mathcal{R}}_0{w}_1\ll 1$, hence a near-threshold regime $0<{\mathcal{R}}_0-1\ll 1$. The seed must be small but positive: setting it identically to zero gives no epidemic. This is the near-threshold SIR final-size expansion, and the physical removed count is $S_0{w}_1$.