She noted, however, that game theory assumes people are rational in their decision-making. Fear can suppress vaccination “to precarious levels insufficient to prevent the spread of an outbreak,” she said. Similarly, even after a vaccine is deemed safe and efficacious, uptake rates often remain low. A subsequent iteration of the coronavirus game-theory study explored how vaccine compliance affects the number of deaths prevented. (One poem, “The Strategy of the Majority, ” was drawn from her first paper on human-environment systems, which inspired the current study.

Source: New York Times December 20, 2020 14:48 UTC