A deadlier, more infectious disease can sometimes be easier to eliminate than a mild one.
April 16, 2026
Original Paper
How complex behavioural contagion can prevent infectious diseases from becoming endemic
arXiv · 2604.10995
The Takeaway
We usually assume that a high reproduction number (R0) makes a disease unstoppable. This paper proves the opposite: in certain conditions, a very infectious disease triggers a 'social contagion' of fear and preventative behavior that spreads faster than the virus itself. This aggressive social response can actually drive the disease to extinction, whereas a 'slower' disease might fly under the radar and become permanent. It’s a counterintuitive reality where 'scary' is sometimes safer than 'mild.' For public health, it means that managing human *perception* and 'behavioral contagion' is just as important as the biology of the virus itself.
From the abstract
Infectious disease transmission in human populations has a complex two-way interaction with changes in host behaviour. It is increasingly recognised that incorporating adaptive behavioural change into epidemic models is important for improving understanding of infectious disease dynamics and developing policy-relevant modelling tools. An important aspect of behavioural dynamics is social contagion, where people tend to adopt behaviours exhibited by others around them. In a simple behavioural con