Fig. 5

Intervention timing. Here we show the effect of different control strategies performed at intervention timing \(t_x\) at different circles’ timescales corresponding to Fig. 4 and compare them to the scenario of no intervention corresponding to the case of \(t_x = \infty\). The epidemic start spreading with the parameters \(\zeta = 100\), \(K = 4\), \(k_{inter} = 10^{-3}\), \(Q = 10\), \(L = 1000\) and \(\beta = \beta _c = 0.407\). a Social strategy. \(\beta \rightarrow \beta ^\prime = 0.3\). b Quarantine strategy within cities. \(K \rightarrow K^\prime = 3\). c Quarantine strategy between cities. \(Q \rightarrow Q^\prime = 1\) by reducing \(k_{inter} \rightarrow k_{inter}^\prime = 10^{-4}\) and keeping \(\zeta\) fixed. The epidemic extent at \(t_x\) is \(\langle r_{max} \rangle _x\) and when the epidemic stops to spread it is \(\langle r_{max} \rangle _f\). In all cases the intervention successfully stop the disease spatial propagation with \(\langle r_{max} \rangle _f \approx \langle r_{max} \rangle _x\)