We consider a possibility of socioeconomic collapse caused by the spread of epidemic. To this end, we exploit a simple SIS-like (susceptible-infected-susceptible) model with negative feedback between the infected population size and a collective economic resource associated with the average amount of money or income per economic agent. The coupling mechanism in such a system is supposed to be of activation type, with the recovery rate governed by the Arrhenius-like law. In this case, economic resource formally plays the role of effective market temperature and the minimum level of resource consumption is associated with activation energy. Such a coupling can result in the collapsing effect opposite to thermal explosion, so that the epidemic could ultimately drive the system to a collapse at nonzero activation energy because of the limited resource. In this case, the system can no longer stabilize and return to the stable pre-epidemic state or a poorer post-epidemic state. We demonstrate that the system's collapse can partially be mitigated by external subsidies meaning constant resource inflow from some external source or by means of debt interpreted as a negative resource. We also consider a simple quarantine scenario and show that it can lead to different socioeconomic outcomes, depending on initial resource (market temperature) and the minimum level of resource consumption (activation energy).
In this study we present a dynamical agent-based model to investigate the interplay between the socio-economy of and SEIRS-type epidemic spreading over a geographical area, divided to smaller area districts and further to smallest area cells. The model treats the populations of cells and authorities of districts as agents, such that the former can reduce their economic activity and the latter can recommend economic activity reduction both with the overall goal to slow down the epidemic spreading. The agents make decisions with the aim of attaining as high socio-economic standings as possible r…
We consider a possibility of socioeconomic collapse caused by the spread of epidemic in a basic dynamical model with negative feedback between the infected population size and a formal collective economic resource. The epidemic-resource coupling is supposed to be of activation type, with the recovery rate governed by the Arrhenius-like law and resource playing the role of temperature. Such a coupling can result in the collapsing effect opposite to thermal explosion because of the limited resource. In this case, the system can no longer stabilize and return to the stable pre- or post-epidemic s…
Many countries are managing COVID-19 epidemic by switching between lighter and heavier restrictions. While an open-close and a close-open cycle have comparable socio-economic costs, the former leads to a much heavier burden in terms of deaths and pressure on the healthcare system. An empirical demonstration of the toll ensuing from procrastination was recently observed in Israel, where both cycles were enforced from late August to mid-December 2020, yielding some 1,600 deaths with open-close compared to 440 with close-open.
The spreading of Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the close link between economics and health in the context of emergency management. A widespread vaccination campaign is considered the main tool to contain the economic consequences. This paper will focus, at the level of wealth distribution modelling, on the economic improvements induced by the vaccination campaign in terms of its effectiveness rate. The economic trend during the pandemic is evaluated resorting to a mathematical model joining a classical compartmental model including vaccinated individuals with a kinetic model of wealth dist…
Collapse transition in epidemic spreading subject to detection with limited resources
University of Zaragoza（萨拉戈萨大学）；Institute of Biocomputation and Physics of Complex Systems (BIFI), University of Zaragoza（萨拉戈萨大学复杂系统生物计算与物理研究所 (BIFI)）；Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey（蒙特雷高等技术学院）；Institute Gulbenkian of Science (IGC)（古尔本基安科学研究所 (IGC)）；Queen Mary University of London（伦敦玛丽女王大学）；Università di Catania and INFN（卡塔尼亚大学及意大利国家核物理研究所 (INFN)）；Complexity Science Hub Vienna（维也纳复杂性科学中心）
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, National governments have applied lockdown restrictions to reduce the infection rate. We perform a massive analysis on near real-time Italian data provided by Facebook to investigate how lockdown strategies affect economic conditions of individuals and local governments. We model the change in mobility as an exogenous shock similar to a natural disaster. We identify two ways through which mobility restrictions affect Italian citizens. First, we find that the impact of lockdown is stronger in municipalities with higher fiscal capacity. Second, we find a seg…
Pandemics, in addition to affecting the health of populations, can have huge impacts on their social and economic behavior. These factors, on the other hand, have the potential to feed back to and influence the disease spreading. It is important to systematically study these interrelations, to determine which ones have significant effects, and whether the effects are adverse or beneficial. Our recently developed epidemic model with agent-based and geographical elements is used in this study for such a purpose. We perform an extensive parameter space exploration of the socio-economic part of th…
We analyse 'stop-and-go' containment policies that produce infection cycles as periods of tight lockdowns are followed by periods of falling infection rates. The subsequent relaxation of containment measures allows cases to increase again until another lockdown is imposed and the cycle repeats. The policies followed by several European countries during the Covid-19 pandemic seem to fit this pattern. We show that 'stop-and-go' should lead to lower medical costs than keeping infections at the midpoint between the highs and lows produced by 'stop-and-go'. Increasing the upper and reducing the low…
We propose a dynamical model for describing the spread of epidemics. This model is an extension of the SIQR (susceptible-infected-quarantined-recovered) and SIRP (susceptible-infected-recovered-pathogen) models used earlier to describe various scenarios of epidemic spreading. As compared to the basic SIR model, our model takes into account two possible routes of contagion transmission: direct from the infected compartment to the susceptible compartment and indirect via some intermediate medium or fomites. Transmission rates are estimated in terms of average distances between the individuals in…
Models for control of epidemics on local, global and small-world networks are considered, with only partial information accessible about the status of individuals and their connections. The main goal of an effective control measure is to stop the epidemic at a lowest possible cost, including treatment and cost necessary to track the disease spread. We show that delay in detection of infectious individuals and presence of long-range links are the most important factors determining the cost. However, the details of long-range links are usually the least-known element of the social interactions d…
Various measures have been taken in different countries to mitigate the Covid-19 epidemic. But, throughout the world, many citizens don't understand well how these measures are taken and even question the decisions taken by their government. Should the measures be more (or less) restrictive? Are they taken for a too long (or too short) period of time? To provide some quantitative elements of response to these questions, we consider the well-known SEIR model for the Covid-19 epidemic propagation and propose a pragmatic model of the government decision-making operation. Although simple and obvio…
The potential tradeoff between health outcomes and economic impact has been a major challenge in the policy making process during the COVID-19 pandemic. Epidemic-economic models designed to address this issue are either too aggregate to consider heterogeneous outcomes across socio-economic groups, or, when sufficiently fine-grained, not well grounded by empirical data. To fill this gap, we introduce a data-driven, granular, agent-based model that simulates epidemic and economic outcomes across industries, occupations, and income levels with geographic realism. The key mechanism coupling the ep…
Instituto Federal do Norte de Minas Gerais (IFNMG)（北米纳斯吉拉斯联邦学院）；Federal University of Minas Gerais（米纳斯吉拉斯联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais（米纳斯吉拉斯联邦大学）；Universidade Federal de Ouro Preto（奥罗普雷托联邦大学）
The COVID-19 pandemic due to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus has directly impacted the public health and economy worldwide. To overcome this problem, countries have adopted different policies and non-pharmaceutical interventions for controlling the spread of the virus. This paper proposes the COVID-ABS, a new SEIR (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered) agent-based model that aims to simulate the pandemic dynamics using a society of agents emulating people, business and government. Seven different scenarios of social distancing interventions were analyzed, with varying epidemiological and economic…
Economic interdependencies have become increasingly present in globalized production, financial and trade systems. While establishing interdependencies among economic agents is crucial for the production of complex products, they may also increase systemic risks due to failure propagation. It is crucial to identify how network connectivity impacts both the emergent production and risk of collapse of economic systems. In this paper we propose a model to study the effects of network structure on the behavior of economic systems by varying the density and centralization of connections among agent…
Mumbai, amongst the most densely populated cities in the world, has witnessed the fourth largest number of cases and the largest number of deaths among all the cities in India (as of 28th October 2020). Along with the rest of India, lockdowns (of varying degrees) have been in effect in Mumbai since March 25, 2020. Given the large economic toll on the country from the lockdown and the related restrictions on mobility of people and goods, swift opening of the economy especially in a financial hub such as Mumbai becomes critical. In this report, we use the IISc-TIFR agent based simulator to devel…
We analyse the economics and epidemiology of different scenarios for a phased restart of the UK economy. Our economic model is designed to address the unique features of the COVID-19 pandemic. Social distancing measures affect both supply and demand, and input-output constraints play a key role in restricting economic output. Standard models for production functions are not adequate to model the short-term effects of lockdown. A survey of industry analysts conducted by IHS Markit allows us to evaluate which inputs for each industry are absolutely necessary for production over a two month perio…
The control of epidemic spreading is essential to avoid potential fatal consequences and also, to lessen unforeseen socio-economic impact. The need for effective control is exemplified during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2003, which has inflicted near to a thousand deaths as well as bankruptcies of airlines and related businesses. In this article, we examine the efficacy of control strategies on the propagation of infectious diseases based on removing connections within real world airline network with the associated economic and social costs taken into account through defini…
As a common strategy of contagious disease containment, lockdowns will inevitably weaken the economy. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic underscores the trade-off arising from public health and economic cost. An optimal lockdown policy to resolve this trade-off is highly desired. Here we propose a mathematical framework of pandemic control through an optimal stabilizing non-uniform lockdown, where our goal is to reduce the economic activity as little as possible while decreasing the number of infected individuals at a prescribed rate. This framework allows us to efficiently compute the optimal stab…
The rapid spread of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) confronts policy makers with the problem of measuring the effectiveness of containment strategies, balancing public health considerations with the economic costs of social distancing measures. We introduce a modified epidemic model that we name the controlled-SIR model, in which the disease reproduction rate evolves dynamically in response to political and societal reactions. An analytic solution is presented. The model reproduces official COVID-19 cases counts of a large number of regions and countries that surpassed the first peak of the outbrea…
The ongoing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic threatens the health of humans and causes great economic losses. Predictive modelling and forecasting the epidemic trends are essential for developing countermeasures to mitigate this pandemic. We develop a network model, where each node represents an individual and the edges represent contacts between individuals where the infection can spread. The individuals are classified based on the number of contacts they have each day (their node degrees) and their infection status. The transmission network model was respectively fitted to the re…
We investigate a multi-household DSGE model in which past aggregate consumption impacts the confidence, and therefore consumption propensity, of individual households. We find that such a minimal setup is extremely rich, and leads to a variety of realistic output dynamics: high output with no crises; high output with increased volatility and deep, short lived recessions; alternation of high and low output states where relatively mild drop in economic conditions can lead to a temporary confidence collapse and steep decline in economic activity. The crisis probability depends exponentially on th…
