A widely held belief in network epidemiology is that information diffusion makes individuals aware of the epidemic and thus drives them to seek protections from nonpharmaceutical or pharmaceutical resources, which can help suppress its spread. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic has revealed, excessive information diffusion can trigger irrational acquisition and hoarding behaviors, which can lead to shortages of resources even for those in urgent need, consequently, worsening disease spreading. To develop a quantitative understanding of the effect of information diffusion on epidemic spreading, subject to allocations of limited resources, has become an urgently important problem with broad implications. We construct a multiplex network framework to characterize the complex interplay among resource allocation, information diffusion, and epidemic spreading, and develop a microscopic Markov chain theory to analyze their coevolution dynamics. There are two main findings. Firstly, if infected individuals have a large recovery probability, information diffusion plays the expected “normal” role of suppressing the epidemic. However, if the recovery probability is low, information diffusion can anomalously worsen the spread, regardless of the available resources insofar as they are limited. Secondly, different types of resources can lead to distinct phase transitions underlying the epidemic outbreak when the recovery probability is low: with limited cure-focused resources, the phase transition is of the second order, but if resources are of the protection type, the transition becomes first order, and a hysteresis loop emerges. The generality of the findings is established through simulations of synthetic and empirical three-layer networks with results in agreement with the theoretical predictions.

中文翻译：

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信息传播在流行病传播中的反常作用

对网络流行病学的普遍看法是，信息传播使个人意识到该流行病，从而驱使他们寻求免受非药物或药物资源的保护，从而有助于抑制其传播。但是，正如COVID-19大流行所揭示的那样，过多的信息传播会触发不合理的获取和ho积行为，甚至对于那些迫切需要的人也可能导致资源短缺，从而加剧疾病的传播。在资源分配有限的情况下，发展对信息传播对流行病传播影响的定量认识已经成为具有广泛意义的迫切重要问题。我们构建了一个多元网络框架，以描述资源分配，信息扩散，和流行病传播，并发展了微观马尔可夫链理论来分析它们的协同演化动力学。有两个主要发现。首先，如果感染者具有较大的恢复可能性，则信息传播将起到抑制流行的预期“正常”作用。但是，如果恢复概率低，则无论可用资源如何，信息扩散都会使传播异常恶化，只要它们受到限制即可。其次，当恢复可能性低时，不同类型的资源可能导致流行病爆发的明显相变：如果以治疗为重点的资源有限，则相变是二阶的，但是如果资源是保护类型，则过渡是二阶的。变为一阶，并出现磁滞回线。