The role of fear and public opinion in mitigating the impact of deniers during epidemics

Shidong Zhai, Yuhan Tang, Jun Ma and Junli Tao

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, 2025, vol. 199, issue P1

Abstract: This paper explores the impact of fear and online public opinion on the spread of epidemics in a virus model that includes both denialists and cautious individuals, using homogeneous and heterogeneous activity-driven networks (ADNs). We develop a new virus propagation model that incorporates the effects of fear and network public opinion, offering a more realistic depiction of epidemic dynamics. Using the mean-field method, we derive the epidemic threshold for homogeneous ADNs and show that both fear and public opinion raise this threshold, mitigating the impact of denialists on epidemic transmission. Extending our analysis to heterogeneous ADNs, we find that increased population heterogeneity facilitates the spread of epidemics, highlighting complex interactions in diverse populations. Numerical experiments further demonstrate that incorporating fear and public opinion helps reduce epidemic spread by lowering system heterogeneity, with fear driven by external factors proving more effective than fear induced by online public opinion or direct contact with infected individuals. These findings emphasize the importance of social and psychological factors in controlling epidemic dynamics.

Keywords: Network control; Stability; Deniers; Fear factors; Public opinion factors; Epidemics (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960077925006356
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:chsofr:v:199:y:2025:i:p1:s0960077925006356

DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2025.116622

Access Statistics for this article

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals is currently edited by Stefano Boccaletti and Stelios Bekiros

More articles in Chaos, Solitons & Fractals from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thayer, Thomas R. ().