The effect of social distancing on the reach of an epidemic in social networks

Gregory Gutin, Tomohiro Hirano, Sung-Ha Hwang, Philip R Neary and Alexis Akira Toda

University of California at San Diego, Economics Working Paper Series from Department of Economics, UC San Diego

Abstract: How does social distancing affect the reach of an epidemic in social networks? We present Monte Carlo simulation results of a susceptible-infected-removed with social distancing model. The key feature of the model is that individuals are limited in the number of acquaintances that they can interact with, thereby constraining disease transmission to an infectious subnetwork of the original social network. While increased social distancing typically reduces the spread of an infectious disease, the magnitude varies greatly depending on the topology of the network, indicating the need for policies that are network dependent. Our results also reveal the importance of coordinating policies at the 'global' level. In particular, the public health benefits from social distancing to a group (e.g. a country) may be completely undone if that group maintains connections with outside groups that are not following suit.

Keywords: Economics; Banking; Finance and Investment; Applied Economics; Commerce; Management; Tourism and Services; Biodefense; Infectious Diseases; Vaccine Related; Prevention; Infection; Good Health and Well Being; SIRwSD model; Social distancing; Infectious subnetwork; WS small-world networks; BA scale-free networks; q-bio.PE; physics.soc-ph; Fluids & Plasmas; Banking; finance and investment; Applied economics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-07-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cmp, nep-hea, nep-net, nep-pay and nep-soc
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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Related works:
Journal Article: The effect of social distancing on the reach of an epidemic in social networks (2021)
Working Paper: The Effect of Social Distancing on the Reach of an Epidemic in Social Networks (2020)
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