How A Lack Of Vaccination Can Induce An Epidemic
Location
SU 219
Department
Mathematics
Abstract
For any number of reasons people are not getting the vaccines that will give them immunity from many life threatening diseases. Although we are not going to discuss the psychology of what is causing people to make these decisions, we will show that this behavior can be detrimental to society. Using the threshold, we determine if the conditions are right for a disease to spread, which happens when on average an infected person is infecting more than one person with the disease. When a large enough number of people are getting vaccinations there will not be enough susceptible people available to become infected. However when enough individuals are not getting vaccinated, the conditions will exist for an outbreak to occur. Specifically we will show at what point a percentage of a population not getting needed vaccines will create the right conditions for an epidemic to occur.
How A Lack Of Vaccination Can Induce An Epidemic
SU 219
For any number of reasons people are not getting the vaccines that will give them immunity from many life threatening diseases. Although we are not going to discuss the psychology of what is causing people to make these decisions, we will show that this behavior can be detrimental to society. Using the threshold, we determine if the conditions are right for a disease to spread, which happens when on average an infected person is infecting more than one person with the disease. When a large enough number of people are getting vaccinations there will not be enough susceptible people available to become infected. However when enough individuals are not getting vaccinated, the conditions will exist for an outbreak to occur. Specifically we will show at what point a percentage of a population not getting needed vaccines will create the right conditions for an epidemic to occur.
Comments
Joseph Hibdon Jr. is the faculty sponsor of this project.