Nash Equilibrium to stop disease spread
https://phys.org/news/2018-09-game-theory-disease-outbreaks.html
The article examines the optimal strategies for an individual and a group of individuals to minimize disease spread. When diseases spread, such as the Ebola outbreak in 2014, many countries stopped flights to affected regions, which resulted in a delayed spread to other regions but limited aid worker help to affected regions. This article looks into Nash Equilibrium, a topic studied in class, to explain how individual, or tourist, preference and group preference may clash and the clash affects decisions on travel bans.
A Nash Equilibrium diagram can be created for individuals, who have an option of traveling or not, and a group, who have an option of allowing travel or banning it. If individuals do not want to travel to a certain region affected by an outbreak, then the group is safe from the outbreak and a travel ban can be imposed without any complaints. Usually, this is a result of numerous news reports about the dangers of the outbreak which scare the individuals from traveling to that region. If the outbreak is not as severe or the disease is not as dangerous, then there are less news reports and many individuals are still willing to travel. Since the disease is not as dangerous, it does not affect the group as drastically and no travel ban is needed. However, there could be a discrepancy when the news media does not report the outbreak and the individuals still think it is safe to travel to an affected region. Then the group is in danger because these individuals bring the disease back and would try to push for a travel ban that individuals would oppose. If a travel ban is not imposed to an area that does not have a severe outbreak but individuals do not travel, the individual and the group will not be affected. However, the region’s tourist industry would suffer.
Thus, public officials understand the public views and news coverage of the affected region before deciding whether a travel ban should be imposed. They want to minimize the number of individuals who view the public official negatively while protecting the overall health of the group. Thus, they are using Nash Equilibrium to help determine what actions should be taken.