out that, in most situations, neither explanation was correct.[35] Like Ross, Kermack and McKendrick started by developing a mathematical model of disease transmission. For simplicity, they assumed the population mixed randomly in their model. Like marbles being shaken in a jar, everyone in the population has an equal chance of meeting everyone else. In the model, the epidemic sparks with a certain number of infectious people, and everyone else susceptible to infection. Once someone has recovered from infection, they are immune to the disease. We can therefore put the population into one of
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