Comparison of Hawkes and Seir Models for the Spread of Covid-19

Two models that capture the spread of infectious diseases, the Hawkes point process model and the SEIR compartmental model, are compared with regard to their use in modeling the COVID-19 pandemic. The physical plausibility of the SEIR model is weighed against the parsimony and flexibility of the Hawkes model. The mathematical connection between Hawkes and SEIR models is described.