Rational social distancing policy during epidemics with limited healthcare capacity
Fig 4
(A) Peak of the epidemic as a function of the maximum cost of infection for a range of scenarios where the (maximum) infection cost for either population or government is varied: Nash equilibrium behaviour of the population, without government intervention for a constant infection cost (black line, replotted from Fig 3) and with a healthcare threshold at ihc = 0.01 (red, replotted from Fig 3); with government intervention for a constant infection cost αg (cost-free γg = 0: gold, costly γg = 0.5: cyan) and with a healthcare threshold at ihc = 0.01 (cost-free γg = 0: green, costly γg = 0.5: purple). The circles mark the scenarios shown in Fig 5. For these scenarios, we also show (B) the total number of cases, (C) the duration of the epidemic, as well as (D) the total cost of the epidemic in units of the minimal infection cost α0. In the cases without government intervention, the total cost is calculated as −U, whereas in the cases with government intervention, we report −Ug. In the inset, the epidemic cost is shown in units of the maximum infection cost. Lines serve as guides to the eye.