Epidemiology in Games

World of Warcraft seems to have a software exploit that makes it a ripe environment for recreating epidemiological spread of disease. It seems that Professor Fefferman believes that the findings could be of great value to public health officials in developing the best way to manage the flow of information in such a crisis. “By using these games as an untapped experimental framework, we may be able to gain deeper insight into the incredible complexity of infectious disease epidemiology in social groups,” wrote the authors, Eric Lofgren, of Rutgers University, New Jersey, and Nina Fefferman, of Tufts University, Boston.