Interplay Between Risk Perception, Behavior, and COVID-19 Spread

Pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been crucial for controlling COVID-19. They are complemented by voluntary health-protective behavior, building a complex interplay between risk perception, behavior, and disease spread. We studied how voluntary health-protective behavior and vaccination willingness impact the long-term dynamics. We analyzed how different levels of mandatory NPIs determine how individuals use their leeway for voluntary actions. If mandatory NPIs are too weak, COVID-19 incidence will surge, implying high morbidity and mortality before individuals react;if they are too strong, one expects a rebound wave once restrictions are lifted, challenging the transition to endemicity. Conversely, moderate mandatory NPIs give individuals time and room to adapt their level of caution, mitigating disease spread effectively. When complemented with high vaccination rates, this also offers a robust way to limit the impacts of the Omicron variant of concern. Altogether, our work highlights the importance of appropriate mandatory NPIs to maximise the impact of individual voluntary actions in pandemic control. Copyright © 2022 Dönges, Wagner, Contreras, Iftekhar, Bauer, Mohr, Dehning, Calero Valdez, Kretzschmar, Mäs, Nagel and Priesemann.

The History of Agent-Based Modeling in the Social Sciences

Agent-based modeling is a powerful technique that allows modeling social phenomena ab-initio or from first principles. In this paper, we review the history of agent-based models and their role in the social sciences. We review 62 papers and create a timeline of developments starting from 1759 and Adam Smith into the recent past of 2020 and efforts to model the Covid-19 pandemic. We reflect on model validation, different levels of model complexity, multi-scale models, and cognitive architectures. We identify key trends for the future use of agent-based modeling in the socials sciences. © 2021, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.