Fig 5. Simulations of Scenario I: Integrating awareness into biasness of random walks.

Panels (a.1)-(d.1) compare ${\bar{E}}^{\ell }(t)+{\bar{P}}^{\ell }(t)+{\bar{A}}^{\ell }(t)+{\bar{I}}^{(-),\ell }(t)+{\bar{I}}^{(+),\ell }(t)$, where the reference is the biased random walk model without awareness in Section 2.4. Incorporated awareness in biasness alone does not necessarily constrain outbreaks. When the increment of public awareness ${\theta }_a^{+}$ increases from 1 to 3 to 10 to 20, there is a high chance that the susceptible agents have already transitioned into the exposed or asymptomatic infectious ones. As a result, disease transmissions are boosted and outbreaks are escalated.