Nonuniversal power-law dynamics of susceptible infected recovered models on hierarchical modular networks

Power-law (PL) time-dependent infection growth has been reported in many COVID-19 statistics. In simple susceptible infected recovered (SIR) models, the number of infections grows at the outbreak as I(t)∝t^{d-1} on d-dimensional Euclidean lattices in the endemic phase, or it follows a slower universal PL at the critical point, until finite sizes cause immunity and a crossover to an exponential decay. Heterogeneity may alter the dynamics of spreading models, and spatially inhomogeneous infection rates can cause slower decays, posing a threat of a long recovery from a pandemic. COVID-19 statistics have also provided epidemic size distributions with PL tails in several countries. Here I investigate SIR-like models on hierarchical modular networks, embedded in 2d lattices with the addition of long-range links. I show that if the topological dimension of the network is finite, average degree-dependent PL growth of prevalence emerges. Supercritically, the same exponents as those of regular graphs occur, but the topological disorder alters the critical behavior. This is also true for the epidemic size distributions. Mobility of individuals does not affect the form of the scaling behavior, except for the d=2 lattice, but it increases the magnitude of the epidemic. The addition of a superspreader hot spot also does not change the growth exponent and the exponential decay in the herd immunity regime.