Individual preventive social distancing during an epidemic may have negative population-level outcomes

Abstract

The outbreak of an infectious disease in a human population can lead to individuals responding with preventive measures in an attempt to avoid getting infected. This leads to changes in contact patterns. However, as we show in this paper, rational behaviour at the individual level, such as social distancing from infectious contacts, may not always be beneficial for the population as a whole. We use epidemic network models to demonstrate the potential negative consequences at the population level. We take into account the social structure of the population through several network models. As the epidemic evolves, susceptible individuals may distance themselves from their infectious contacts. Some individuals replace their lost social connections by seeking new ties. If social distancing occurs at a high rate at the beginning of an epidemic, then this can prevent an outbreak from occurring. However, we show that moderate social distancing can worsen the disease outcome, both in the initial phase of an outbreak and the final epidemic size. Moreover, the same negative effect can arise in real-world networks. Our results suggest that one needs to be careful when targeting behavioural changes as they could potentially the epidemic outcome. Furthermore, network structure crucially influences the way that individual-level measures impact the epidemic at the population level. These findings highlight the importance of careful analysis of preventive measures in epidemic models.

Knowledge and Beliefs towards Universal Safety Precautions to flatten the curve during Novel Coronavirus Disease (nCOVID-19) Pandemic among general Public in India: Explorations from a National Perspective

“…Firstly, it observed that either proactive or reactive school closure found to be moderately effective in reducing the transmission of influenza and could only delay the peak of the pandemic by a week; [36]. The whole idea of the authors of this study is that rational preventive measures during epidemics could have a counter effect on the population in the long run as these measures might impact the behavioural changes of the public towards others, which could worsen the epidemic outcomes.…”

The impact of social distancing and epicenter lockdown on the COVID-19 epidemic in mainland China: A data-driven SEIQR model study

“…Our results showed that early intervention of social distancing could reduce the epidemic size The results of virtual experiments vary. Some research suggested social distancing is effective, under the condition of early activation and long-lasting implement of combined measures [8], strict implement [6,9], and spontaneously adopted [10]; some concluded the effectiveness was mild [11]; some argued that moderate social distancing can worsen the disease outcome, [6,9] But real-world studies are rare. Here we quantified the impact of social distancing on the epidemic size in the real world, providing evidence that social distancing is effective to interrupt the transmission of the respiratory pathogen, especially with early implementation and to a substantial extent.…”

“…The importance of non-pharmaceutical control measures requires further research to quantify their impact [3]. Mathematical models are useful to evaluate the possible effects on epidemic dynamics of preventive measures, and to improve decision-making in global health [5,6].…”

Testing, Voluntary Social Distancing and the Spread of an Infection

“…See, for example, Kruse and Strack [2020], Atkeson [2020], Jones et al [2020], Glover et al [2020, Berger et al [2020], and Birge et al [2020]. More closely related are several papers endogenizing behavior and social distancing in the context of SIR models, such as Leung et al [2018], Toxvaerd [2020], Eichenbaum et al [2020], Farboodi et al [2020], and Maloney and Taskin [2020].…”