Antivax movement and epidemic spreading in the era of social networks: Nonmonotonic effects, bistability and network segregation

Abstract

In this work, we address a multicoupled dynamics on complex networks with tunable structural segregation. Specifically, we work on a networked epidemic spreading under a vaccination campaign with agents in favor and against the vaccine. Our results show that such coupled dynamics exhibits a myriad of phenomena such as nonequilibrium transitions accompanied by bistability. Besides we observe the emergence of an intermediate optimal segregation level where the community structure enhances negative opinions over vaccination but counterintuitively hinders - rather than favoring - the global disease spreading. Thus, our results hint vaccination campaigns should avoid policies that end up segregating excessively anti-vaccine groups so that they effectively work as echo chambers in which individuals look to confirmation without jeopardising the safety of the whole population.

11 pages, 8 figures, to appear in PRE

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• Statistical physics of vaccination
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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• Threshold cascade dynamics on coevolving networks
• Phase transition in the Galam's majority-rule model with information-mediated independence
• Double transition in kinetic exchange opinion models with activation dynamics
• Optimal rewiring in coupled opinion and epidemic dynamics with vaccination
• What is the potential for a second peak in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in emerging and developing economies? Insights from a SIRASD model considering the informal economy
• Interplay between exogenous triggers and endogenous behavioral changes in contagion processes on social networks