On November 20th, Premier Ford has announced that he would bring “tough” new measures to places in Ontario. As many measures like social distancing are only effective if everyone complies, the topic of why someone would or would not comply with these measures became interesting to me. We have seen numerous protests against the lockdowns as well as other measures locally and in other places in the world.
In the article by Brune and Wilson, the ‘Public Goods Game’ (PGG) was used to describe the COVID-19 measures situation. In a PGG, all players have a common goal which in this case is to return back to a life that is COVID free. But, it is possible to not contribute towards this goal and still enjoy the public good (the common goal). This goal is non excluding and should we reach it, those who did and did not contribute with enjoy the payoff equally.
Brune and Wilson break down the payoff as done in our class material for the social distancing measures that have been implemented. Brune and Wilson identify that the obvious benefit would be that it slows down the spread of COVID-19. However, the downside of this measure is the added stress social distancing can cause which also negatively impacts our health. In this PGG, Brune and Wilson identify that there is a minority of people who defect and choose to ignore these measures without regard for their own health and others. Brune and Wilson suggest that in order to decrease this number of people who choose to defect, the payoff for choosing this response should decrease.
PGG says that cooperation decreases over time and I think that is an important aspect of PGG that makes it relatable the current COVID-19 situation. After almost a year, the amount of cooperation may go down and it may make controlling this virus more difficult than the first wave.
Overall, I think Brune and Wilson were successful in identifying payoffs of social distancing however, I think it would have been more helpful if a payoff matrix was made like the ones we have seen in our course material with values assigned to the benefits and punishments in this ‘game’. I think having this matrix will help show why certain players in this game would choose a certain response and can even help governments decide how to increase the chances of players choosing to obey the restrictions. This can be done by decreasing the payoff as mentioned earlier by Brune and Wilson or through other means. Governments can try to introduce pure strategy nash equilibriums so that players would always choose to obey the restrictions.
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