Department of Mathematics, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Sep 13;19(9):e0293489. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0293489. eCollection 2024.
In a severe epidemic such as the COVID-19 pandemic, social distancing can be a vital tool to stop the spread of the disease and save lives. However, social distancing may induce profound negative social or economic impacts as well. How to optimize social distancing is a serious social, political, as well as public health issue yet to be resolved. This work investigates social distancing with a focus on how every individual reacts to an epidemic, what role he/she plays in social distancing, and how every individual's decision contributes to the action of the population and vice versa. Social distancing is thus modeled as a population game, where every individual makes decision on how to participate in a set of social activities, some with higher frequencies while others lower or completely avoided, to minimize his/her social contacts with least possible social or economic costs. An optimal distancing strategy is then obtained when the game reaches an equilibrium. The game is simulated with various realistic restraints including (i) when the population is distributed over a social network, and the decision of each individual is made through the interactions with his/her social neighbors; (ii) when the individuals in different social groups such as children vs. adults or the vaccinated vs. unprotected have different distancing preferences; (iii) when leadership plays a role in decision making, with a certain number of leaders making decisions while the rest of the population just follow. The simulation results show how the distancing game is played out in each of these scenarios, reveal the conflicting yet cooperative nature of social distancing, and shed lights on a self-organizing, bottom-up perspective of distancing practices.
在 COVID-19 等严重疫情中，社交隔离是阻止疾病传播和拯救生命的重要手段。然而，社交隔离也可能带来深远的负面社会或经济影响。如何优化社交隔离是一个尚未解决的严肃的社会、政治和公共卫生问题。本工作重点研究社交隔离，包括个体如何对疫情做出反应，他/她在社交隔离中扮演什么角色，以及个体的决策如何促进和制约群体行为，反之亦然。因此，社交隔离被建模为一个群体博弈，其中每个个体都要做出决策，即如何参与一系列社交活动，有些活动的频率更高，而有些活动的频率更低或完全避免，以在尽可能小的社会或经济成本下最小化与他人的社交接触。当博弈达到均衡时，就会得到一个最优的隔离策略。该博弈通过各种现实约束进行模拟，包括：(i) 当人群分布在社交网络中，个体的决策是通过与社交邻居的互动做出的；(ii) 当不同社会群体（如儿童与成人、接种者与未接种者）的个体具有不同的隔离偏好时；(iii) 当领导力在决策中发挥作用时，有一定数量的领导者做出决策，而其余的人则跟随。模拟结果展示了在这些情况下隔离博弈是如何进行的，揭示了社交隔离的冲突与合作的本质，并从自组织、自下而上的角度阐明了隔离实践。
