SARS-CoV-2 emerging complexity and global dynamics

The novel SARS-CoV-2 virus, prone to variation when interacting with spatially extended ecosystems and within hosts, can be considered a complex dynamic system. 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 4D and 2D space-time patterns of the rate of infected individuals on a global scale, giving quantitative measures of transitions between different dynamical behaviors. By slicing the spatiotemporal patterns, we found manifestations of the virus behavior, such as cluster formation and bifurcation. Furthermore, by analyzing morphogenesis processes by entropy, we have been able to detect the virus phase transitions, typical of adaptive biological systems. Our results for the first time describe the virus patterning behavior processes all over the world, giving them quantitative measures. We know that the outcomes of this work are still partial and more advanced analyses of the virus behavior in nature are necessary. However, we think that the set of methods implemented can provide significant advantages to better analyze the viral behavior in the approach of system biology, thus expanding knowledge and improving pandemic problem solving.