The impact of a single individual in an epidemic
Many policy responses to infectious diseases involve behavior changes, either by encouragement or through restriction. Often these are associated with penalties/rewards to produce behavior change. When designing a policy, ethical considerations suggest that the penalties/rewards for an action should be proportional to the harm/benefit to others resulting from that action. In this talk, Dr Joel Miller will explore the expected impact on the final size of an epidemic of a single individual changing behavior as well as the combined impact of a group. Due to the convexity of the final size relation, the marginal benefit of an individual changing behavior to prevent transmission is increased if others are also taking actions to prevent transmission, this benefit is largest with the reproduction number is close to 1.
Speaker
Dr. Joel Miller, Associate Professor of Mathematics & Statistics at La Trobe University
Please note the speaker will be remote.
Admission
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