The Cost of Communication Failure: Validating an Empirical Case With Individual-Based Modeling on MERS outbreak

• In Event: Semantics and Structure of Online Communication

Abstract

This study addresses the cost of communication failure during the outbreak of contagious virus disease. The cost refers the size of people and hospitals exposed to the infected environment. By examining the consequence of an empirical case, the paper calculates the cost to be borne. In addition, the study builds an individual-based model, a simulation model, to test the generative nature of the consequence. A selected case of this paper is the outbreak of Middle East Repository Syndrome (MERS) virus diffusion during the 2015 summer in S. Korea. This case is an interesting example that hospital information is not disclosed at the earlier stage of the diffusion but later opened. According to the empirical case study and simulation model, the earliest announcement could have reduced infected people and hospitals up to 80 percent.

Author

• Ho Young Yoon, Korea University