Interplay of simplicial information propagation and epidemic spreading on multiplex metapopulation networks

Disease-related information inevitably enhances people's awareness to prevent themselves from being infected. The traditional information propagation mainly presents in the form of individual to individual, without revealing the effects of herd-awareness on individuals. That is, individuals can perceive the disease-related information not only from their resident herd but also surrounding high-order herds. Thus, to further explore the effects information propagation of herd-awareness on spatial spreading of the epidemic, we construct a two-layer metapopulation network model, in which the upper layer is responsible for the information propagation by the patterns of self-herd awareness (0-simplex), neighboring herd awareness (1-simplex), and high-order herd-awareness (2-simplex), while the lower layer is responsible for spatial spreading of the epidemic.The results show that strengthening self-herd awareness can properly curb the epidemic spreading, and enhancing neighboring herd-awareness propagation apparently decrease the final infection scale. Nevertheless, enhancing high-order herd-awareness of 2-simplex propagation is not evident. This study may provide helpful guidance for the intervention of the epidemic in reality.