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An epidemiological model with voluntary quarantine strategies governed by evolutionary game dynamics
•A novel approach for modeling the interactions between viral spreading and social strategies, as voluntary quarantine, based on individual disease risk perception.•The model merges game theory and epidemiological spread in a single compartmental model with one time scale.•Results show recurrent inf...
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| Published in: | Chaos, solitons and fractals solitons and fractals, 2021-02, Vol.143, p.110616-110616, Article 110616 |
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| Main Authors: | , , |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Subjects: | |
| Citations: | Items that this one cites Items that cite this one |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | •A novel approach for modeling the interactions between viral spreading and social strategies, as voluntary quarantine, based on individual disease risk perception.•The model merges game theory and epidemiological spread in a single compartmental model with one time scale.•Results show recurrent infection waves correlated to the population awareness of the disease risk, similar to what observed in past epidemic scenarios with voluntary quarantine.•The disease awareness is shown to be the central parameter to control the infection peak height.
During pandemic events, strategies such as social distancing can be fundamental to reduce simultaneous infections and mitigate the disease spreading, which is very relevant to the risk of a healthcare system collapse. Although these strategies can be recommended, or even imposed, their actual implementation may depend on the population perception of the risks associated with a potential infection. The current COVID-19 crisis, for instance, is showing that some individuals are much more prone than others to remain isolated. To better understand these dynamics, we propose an epidemiological SIR model that uses evolutionary game theory for combining in a single process social strategies, individual risk perception, and viral spreading. In particular, we consider a disease spreading through a population, whose agents can choose between self-isolation and a lifestyle careless of any epidemic risk. The strategy adoption is individual and depends on the perceived disease risk compared to the quarantine cost. The game payoff governs the strategy adoption, while the epidemic process governs the agent’s health state. At the same time, the infection rate depends on the agent’s strategy while the perceived disease risk depends on the fraction of infected agents. Our results show recurrent infection waves, which are usually seen in previous historic epidemic scenarios with voluntary quarantine. In particular, such waves re-occur as the population reduces disease awareness. Notably, the risk perception is found to be fundamental for controlling the magnitude of the infection peak, while the final infection size is mainly dictated by the infection rates. Low awareness leads to a single and strong infection peak, while a greater disease risk leads to shorter, although more frequent, peaks. The proposed model spontaneously captures relevant aspects of a pandemic event, highlighting the fundamental role of social strategies. |
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| ISSN: | 0960-0779 1873-2887 0960-0779 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.110616 |