  Resource support between individuals is of particular importance in
controlling or mitigating epidemic spreading, especially during pandemics.
Whereas there remains the question of how we can protect ourselves from being
infected while helping others by donating resources in fighting against the
epidemic. To answer the question, we propose a novel resource allocation model
by considering the awareness of self-protection of individuals. In the model, a
tuning parameter is introduced to quantify the reaction strength of individuals
when they are aware of the disease. And then, a coupled model of resource
allocation and disease spreading is proposed to study the impact of
self-awareness on resource allocation and, its impact on the dynamics of
epidemic spreading. Through theoretical analysis and extensive Monte Carlo
simulations, we find that in the stationary state, the system converges to two
states: the whole healthy or the completely infected, which indicates an abrupt
increase in the prevalence when there is a shortage of resources. More
importantly, we find that too cautious and too selfless for the people during
the outbreak of an epidemic are both not suitable for disease control. Through
extensive simulations, we find the optimal point, at which there is a maximum
value of the epidemic threshold, and an outbreak can be delayed to the greatest
extent. At last, we study further the effects of network structure on the
coupled dynamics. We find that the degree heterogeneity promotes the outbreak
of disease, and the network structure does not alter the optimal phenomenon in
behavior response.
