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Game Theory of Social Distancing in Response to an Epidemic

Figure 2

Epidemic solutions with equilibrium social distancing and without social distancing.

Social distancing reduces the epidemic peak and prolongs the epidemic, as we can see by comparing a time series with subgame-perfect social distancing (top left) and a time series with the same initial condition but no social distancing (bottom left) (parameters , ). In the phase plane (right), we see that both epidemics track each other perfectly until , when individuals begin to use social distancing to reduce transmission. Eventually, social distancing leads to a smaller epidemic. The convexity change appearing at the bottom the phaseplane orbit with social distancing corresponds to the cessation of social distancing.

doi: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000793.g002