In their new work, our Prof. Maurizio Porfiri along with Lorenzo Zino (University of Groningen, now Polytechnic University of Turin) and Prof. Alessandro Rizzo (Polytechnic University of Turin) studied the epidemic spreading of a disease in a population divided into two groups: cautious and deniers. This division was formed on the basis of people’s attitudes towards adopting or not adopting public health measures in different degrees, depending on the polarization of the public debate. The researchers showed that even small groups of deniers can have a significant effect on the spreading of the virus, when the public debate is highly polarized.
Read the paper “The impact of deniers on epidemics: A temporal network model”, published in IEEE Control Systems Letters here.
Image credit: Adobe Stock/Yurii Klymko.