Previous understandings of the rate that epidemics spread are based entirely on reproduction rate. This research presents “a modeling framework to couple the inter-host network spreading patterns with the intra-host evolutionary dynamics.” Ultimately, epidemic spreading patterns are not defined solely by reproduction rate, and at either extreme of the mutation rate, the pathogen fails to spread. There are, however, “a broad range of conditions in which an initially sub-pandemic pathogen can breakthrough to gain widespread prevalence.”

See a full list of authors and read “Epidemic spreading under mutually independent intra- and inter-host pathogen evolution” at Nature Communications.