SARS-CoV-2 emerging complexity

Abstract

The novel SARS_CoV-2 virus, prone to variation when interacting with spatially extended ecosystems and within hosts1 can be considered a complex dynamic system2. Therefore, it behaves creating several space-time manifestations of its dynamics. However, these physical manifestations in nature have not yet been fully disclosed or understood. Here we show 4-3 and 2-D space-time patterns of rate of infected individuals on a global scale, giving quantitative measures of transitions between different dynamical behaviour. By slicing the spatio-temporal patterns, we found manifestations of the virus behaviour such as cluster formation and bifurcations. Furthermore, by analysing the morphogenesis processes by entropy, we have been able to detect the virus phase transitions, typical of adaptive biological systems3. Our results for the first time describe the virus patterning behaviour processes all over the world, giving for them quantitative measures. We know that the outcomes of this work are still partial and more advanced analyses of the virus behaviour in nature are necessary. However, we think that the set of methods implemented can provide significant advantages to better analyse the viral behaviour in the approach of system biology4, thus expanding knowledge and improving pandemic problem solving.