Impact of Public Attitudes towards Vaccination on Influenza Epidemic Dynamics

Infectious diseases, spreading with great intensity among the population, have always been one of the basic biological threats to humans. Fighting them is one of WHO’s priorities. A well-known and well-studied measure to control the spread of infection is vaccination of the population in the case of many diseases. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and recent studies devoted to the impact of vaccination on the development of the pandemic have shown an ambiguous attitude to this tool, the stratification of society and the heterogeneity of its views on this issue. The goal of this study is to verify the hypothesis that the dynamics of opinions about vaccine prophylaxis influence the development of the epidemic process. This hypothesis is investigated using the example of an influenza epidemic. It is assumed that, the opinion dynamics process is completed before the seasonal influenza outbreak begins, by which time each agent has made a vaccination decision. Such decisions influence the formation of immune status personally for each agent, as well as the formation of collective immunity in the population as a whole. The development of the epidemic process is described by one of the modifications of the classical Kermack-McKendrick model (1927). The theoretical study is accompanied by simulation of opinion dynamics and epidemic process, implemented on a network model based on a random graph. A numerical experiment based on statistical data on influenza incidence and annual vaccination campaigns in the Russia and scenario analysis are performed.