Plague in Eyam. The Derbyshire village of Eyam, England, suffered an outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665-1666. The source of that plague was believed to be the Great Plague of London. The village is best known for being the plague village that chose to isolate itself when the plague was discovered there in August 1665 rather than let the infection spread. Detailed records were preserved. The initial population of Eyam was 350. In mid-May 1666, nine months after the beginning of the epidemic, there were 254 susceptibles and 7 infectives. The data about the epidemic in the remaining months are given in Table 2.2. The infective period of the bubonic plague is 11 days

(a) Estimate α.

Table 1: Number of susceptible and infected individuals during the Great Plague of Eyam

Mid May	254	7
July 3/4	235	14.5
August 3/4	153.5	29
August 19	121	21
September 3/4	108	8
September 19	97	8
October 3/4	Unknown	Unknown
October 19	83	0

(b) Use the implicit formula of the SIR model to estimate β.

(c) What is the basic reproduction number R0?