Game Theory can prevent disease outbreaks
https://phys.org/news/2018-09-game-theory-disease-outbreaks.html
Game Theory can prevent disease outbreaks, written by Istvan Zoltan Kiss And Nicos Georgiou starts off by using a specific example of when a flight from Dubai to New York was cancelled due to several passengers having flu like symptoms. It also argues that even though it might seem like a “no brainer” to always cancel a flight in order to avoid the spread of diseases, it has later been proven multiple times that not allowing people to travel is not always the best solution. This is known through a concept that we have discussed in class called game theory and in the case of the article, the example of the Ebola epidemic in 2014 has later shown that keeping planes from flying is not always the key to preventing disease from spreading.
When looking at the possible outcomes when cancelling a flight to prevent disease to spread, there are several things to think about. The first obvious issue is for economic reasons. When a scheduled plane doesn’t take off the company loses money because not everyone will be able to fly again at another time or necessarily fly with the same company. It also, as the article states, means that the region affected by the disease has less aid available to them because people cannot travel to go and help them. This is especially the case in underdeveloped countries that need help from countries with more advanced medicine. Other factors are if people are vaccinated, the climate of the country, and the precautions that people take when traveling to a country where a disease is spreading.
The reason these choices applies to game theory is because on one side there are two options, and each option has a different outcome depending on what the other person does. If a flight is cancelled because of illness of a few passengers, but if everyone had agreed to be vaccinated then the disease won’t spread. For people that are not vaccinated it is the other way around. Moreover, if the media implies that it is a high danger zone for being contaminated then the chances of the flight being cancelled are very high.In 2014, during the Ebola epidemic not letting people fly “only delayed” the curing of the disease for people. Therefore, when cancelling a flight many factors are to be considered in order to make the best decision. Analyzing and attempting to predict what the other side will do based on these factors allows for a much more coherent and logical way of approaching the issue of cancelling flights to prevent disease.