8Hesitancy, Awareness, and Vaccination: A Computational Analysis on Complex Networks
Dibyajyoti Mallick, Aniruddha Ray, Ankita Das and Sayantari Ghosh⋆
Department of Physics, National Institute of Technology Durgapur, Durgapur, West Bengal, India
Abstract
The vaccines for preventing COVID-19 are being considered as the most effective way to reduce the high pandemic burden on the global health infrastructure. However, public hesitancy towards vaccination is a crucial and pressing problem. Our study has been designed to determine the parameters affecting the vaccination decisions of common individuals. Using the platforms of the compartmental model and network simulation, we categorize people and observe their motivation towards vaccinations in a mathematical social contagion process. We consider peer influence as an important factor in this dynamic and study how individuals influence their peers regarding vaccination decisions. The efficiency of the vaccination process is estimated by the period of time required to vaccinate a substantial fraction of the total population. We discovered the major barriers and drivers of this dynamics and concluded that it is required to formulate specific strategies targeting specifically the undecided and vaccine hesitant people.
Keywords: Complex network, mathematical model, social epidemic, vaccination strategies
8.1 Introduction
The novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), ...
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