How Complex is COVID-19: Spatiotemporal Variation of Chaotic Nature of the Virus in Indian States

ABSTRACT

Like other pandemics, COVID‑19 also created a huge socioeconomic imbalance and distress in people. Often, every pandemic is characterized as chaotic and complex. Hence, the nature of the virus spread and deaths should be analyzed to prepare for the next similar pandemic. In this analysis, the popular and well‑known time series in chaos theory is implemented, and the results are deduced for the states of India. The phase space reconstruction algorithm is implemented, and false nearest neighbor (FNN) method is applied to determine the dimensionality, and also Lyapunov exponent of the time series is estimated. The chaotic nature of COVID‑19 cases showed a less severe and low complexity, with the FNN dimension range of 3–5, whereas the COVID‑19 deaths showed moderate complexity with FNN dimensions 2–7. Policymakers should take action on medical availability in rural states and control people’s movement in highly populated areas.