  This paper studies novel epidemic spreading problems influenced by opinion
evolution in social networks, where the opinions reflect the public health
concerns. A coupled bilayer network is proposed, where the epidemics spread
over several communities through a physical network layer while the opinions
evolve over the same communities through a social network layer. The epidemic
spreading process is described by a susceptible-infected-vigilant (SIV) model,
which introduces opinion-dependent epidemic vigilance state compared with the
classical epidemic models. The opinion process is modeled by a polar opinion
dynamics model, which includes infection prevalence and human stubbornness into
the opinion evolution. By introducing an opinion-dependent reproduction number,
we analyze the stability of disease-free and endemic equilibria and derive
sufficient conditions for their global asymptotic stability. We also discuss
the mutual effects between epidemic eradication and opinion consensus, and the
possibility of suppressing epidemic by intervening in the opinions or
implementing public health strategies. Simulations are conducted to verify the
theoretical results and demonstrate the feasibility of epidemic suppression.
