Nonlinear behavior of coupled Evolutionary Games -- Epidemiological Models

TL;DR

This paper introduces a nonlinear epidemiological model that incorporates vaccine development and individual behavioral cooperation, aiming to improve long-term epidemic forecasting and response strategies.

Contribution

It presents a novel nonlinear model integrating vaccine creation and cooperative behavior, enhancing understanding of epidemic dynamics beyond traditional models.

Findings

Vaccine development significantly alters epidemic trajectories.

Cooperative behavior among individuals impacts disease spread.

The model reveals complex nonlinear effects in epidemic evolution.

Abstract

Epidemiological models are an important tool in coping with epidemics, as they offer a forecast, even if often simplistic, of the behavior of the disease in the population. This allows responsible health agencies to organize themselves and adopt strategies to minimize and postpone the population's infection peaks. While during an epidemic outbreak, the available model can be used to describe the behavior of the disease in order to aim for fast and efficient forecasts of the epidemiological scenario, once the epidemiological emergency is over, the objective of the subsequent works is to extend models by integrating new facts and information, thus providing more efficient tools to face future epidemics. In this sense, we present an epidemiological model that takes into account on one hand, the creation of a vaccine during an epidemic outbreak (as we saw happen in the case of COVID-19) and that, on the other hand, considers the impact of the cooperative behavioral choices of individuals.