Epidemic dynamics under variable compliance with interventions

Abstract

Behavioural non-pharmaceutical interventions, such as mask-wearing and social distancing, can reduce the spread of infectious diseases although not all members of a population may comply with public policies. We developed a compartmental model to understand the spread of an infectious disease within a population comprising compliant and non-compliant groups. The model takes into account various behavioural factors influencing flows between compliant and non-compliant groups, such as peer pressure, risk perception, fear of infection and severity of the policy. The coupled social-disease system under various social mechanisms exhibits distinct disease dynamics, revealing the important role of social mechanisms in controlling disease spread in a mixed population. Further, our results show that social mechanisms and the initial state of the population affect the time delay before outbreaks occur and peak prevalence. Our findings emphasize that dynamic social factors may significantly affect outbreaks and we suggest that models incorporating coupled social mechanisms warrant further investigation.