Epidemic on Networks
Link: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2468042719300405
Amidst the age of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is paramount to discuss epidemics on networks. Though Bill Gates predicted a pandemic occurring in 2015, no one truly predicted that a pandemic as pivotal as the COVID-19 pandemic occurs in our lifetime. It’s safe to say that life throws curveballs at us. At the beginning of 2020, people imagined this year to be the best year ever, with social media statuses of 20/20 vision and the roaring 20s popping up on Facebook. By March 2020, the entire world succumbed to the COVID-19 virus, also known as the coronavirus, with millions of people dying every single day.
In 2019, Azizi et al. published a manuscript, “Epidemics on Networks: reducing disease transmission using health emergency declarations and peer communication”. Researchers were trying to understand individual decisions in a world where communications and information move rapidly via cell phones and the Internet, contributing to the development and implementation of policies at stopping or slowing the spread of diseases. Decisions individuals make in an epidemic outbreak depend on several factors, such as information, misinformation, and income or education of those making them.
There are multiple scenarios that are accounted for in the decisions of individuals over the course of an outbreak. Despite seeing mass protests of anti-maskers in the United States and around the world, most individuals change their behaviors to reduce the environmental risk to disease. During the COVID-19 pandemic, more people are likely to wash their hands, wear masks, and avoid handshakes and kissing salutes altogether, to avoid catching the coronavirus. This means individual responses to new circumstances or the “new normal” are adaptive. However, individual responses depend on the real or perceived risks of individuals. For instance, college students between ages 18 to 22 without pre-existing conditions may perceive themselves to be low risk compared to those with pre-existing conditions, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
The manuscript simplified the social networks by making them static. Why would researchers do this? Researchers made static networks to help public health officials know how to slow down or stop a disease outbreak. However, individuals have multiple social networks.
Assume you’re an undergraduate senior at Cornell University studying Information Science, Systems, and Technology with minors in Science Communication and Science and Technology Studies. You have multiple social networks: family, friends, colleagues, and acquaintances to name a few people in your social networks. Though you usually go outside with a mask on in Ithaca, it is risky to go back to your hometown with one of your parents having pre-existing conditions, specifically diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Though you feel tempted to hug that person, it is risky because you don’t want to pass down a fatal virus, such as the COVID-19 virus, to them.
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