Current Science Daily talked with co-author Ádám Kun how the researchers came up with using game theory as a way to help a government most efficiently deal with an epidemic caused by a new pathogen. Kun is at the Institute of Evolution, Centre for Ecological Research and Eötvös Loránd University in Budapest.
The work appears in Nature’s Scientific Reports, Sept. 30.
Two findings of note.
• First, the study found that the “presence and length of a pre-symptomatic infectious state of the disease” has the “greatest effect” on the probability of the pathogen to cause a pandemic.
• Second, surprisingly, the research showed that even if a nation (or state) wants to provide care for everyone who needs it and “minimize the cost of lockdowns,” it should not “strive for the great expansion of its health care capacities….”
Source: currentsciencedaily.com
