Incorporating social opinion in the evolution of an epidemic spread

TL;DR

This paper presents a method to incorporate social opinion into epidemic models, demonstrating how societal mood influences COVID-19 spread and policy effectiveness, with a case study on Spain.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic approach to measure societal mood and integrate it into epidemic models, enhancing understanding of social factors in disease dynamics.

Findings

Societal mood significantly impacts epidemic spread.

Methodology can be applied to different countries.

Incorporating social opinion improves model accuracy.

Abstract

Attempts to control the epidemic spread of COVID19 in the different countries often involve imposing restrictions to the mobility of citizens. Recent examples demonstrate that the effectiveness of these policies strongly depends on the willingness of the population to adhere them. And this is a parameter that it is difficult to measure and control. We demonstrate in this manuscript a systematic way to check the mood of a society and a way to incorporate it into dynamical models of epidemic propagation. We exemplify the process considering the case of Spain although the results and methodology can be directly extrapolated to other countries.