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When we finally get a coronavirus vaccine, who should get the first shot? Do we give it to the likeliest super-spreaders or do we give it to society’s most vulnerable?
Network theorists may have an answer. And it prioritizes frat bros over grandmas 1/ https://wired.trib.al/9KXF8R8
Network theorists may have an answer. And it prioritizes frat bros over grandmas 1/ https://wired.trib.al/9KXF8R8
This pandemic is defined by clusters. An estimated 80% of cases stem from 20% of infected individuals. If we could find those super-spreaders and inoculate them, we could bring the pandemic to a swift end—even if vaccine supplies are limited for most of 2021 2/
But how do we find them? It’s not as though the CDC has a complete map of everyone’s friends, family, and casual contacts—the people they see every day and those they interact with for only a few minutes. That’s where network science comes in 3/
It turns out that you don’t need a complete map. You can find the super-spreaders—the highly connected “hubs” in the social network—by following a simple script: Take a random sample of a population, ask each individual to name an acquaintance, and vaccinate the acquaintance 4/
The act of asking someone to choose a friend, any friend, played out over hundreds or thousands of iterations, leads inevitably to the most connected people.
This is known as the friendship paradox: On average, your friends have more friends than you do. (Sorry, it’s true) 5/
This is known as the friendship paradox: On average, your friends have more friends than you do. (Sorry, it’s true) 5/
By vaccinating those social butterflies—10-20% of the population—you can stop diseases that would normally spread until 60 or 80% were infected. Eliminate enough hubs from the network and the disease has nowhere to go 6/
Acquaintance immunization works well in computer models, but plenty of real-world obstacles remain. How do you efficiently deliver hundreds of millions of doses across the US? What do you do if large portions of the country refuse to be vaccinated? 7/
There are moral conundrums as well. If you have one course of the vaccine and Candidate 1 doesn’t social distance and spends his weekends at frat parties while Candidate 2 is his grandmother, who has barely been out of the house since March, who are you going to choose? 8/
If the goal is to protect the most vulnerable person, you vaccinate grandma. If the goal is to reduce transmission, you vaccinate the frat bro. From society’s perspective, he’s a jerk; from the network’s, he’s a hub.
The question is: What’s our goal? 9/ https://wired.trib.al/9KXF8R8
The question is: What’s our goal? 9/ https://wired.trib.al/9KXF8R8
Don’t miss another science story from us. Subscribe right now to get WIRED for less than $1 a month 10/ https://wired.trib.al/wGoPYl5
