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Coronavirus Hong Kong
OpinionLetters

Letters | How game theory explains why living with Covid-19 is inevitable

  • Readers discuss the optimal strategy for handling the pandemic, lawmakers applying critical thinking, and why Hong Kong’s leader should not be so easily swayed by netizens’ criticism.

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A resident gets a Covid-19 test on a rainy day at a mobile specimen collection station in the MacPherson playground in Mong Kok on March 28. Photo: Yik Yeung -man
Letters
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Pandemic control is a classic example of what game theorists call a coordination game. It’s a game where the highest payout can only be achieved by players agreeing to the same plan of action. In a multiplayer game, if most players believe one plan to be the best plan and act accordingly, the payout changes for the remaining players and they become overwhelmingly incentivised to join the rest of the players.

When it comes to pandemic control, the optimal strategy for each player is such that if most countries in the world are adopting a “zero Covid” policy, it is rational for a country to adopt the same strategy. This way, the virus can collectively be eradicated and everyone wins.
However, if most of the countries in the world decide that “living with the virus” is the optimal strategy and believe the best defence against the virus is herd immunity, then the payout for the countries who hold on to zero-Covid becomes dramatically different. Because virus eradication requires coordination from all countries, when most countries have ruled out that possibility, eradication becomes impossible. Covid-zero becomes a strategy with only cost but no upside.

The optimal strategy in this case is clearly to join the rest of the world and start to live with Covid-19 and develop herd immunity. I hope our leaders can see the maths and understand that, whatever short-term political calculations there may be, this is the inevitable conclusion of logical deduction that no one can escape.

Huan Liu, Sham Tseng

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