  We consider a possibility of socioeconomic collapse caused by the spread of
epidemic. To this end, we exploit a simple SIS-like
(susceptible-infected-susceptible) model with negative feedback between the
infected population size and a collective economic resource associated with the
average amount of money or income per economic agent. The coupling mechanism in
such a system is supposed to be of activation type, with the recovery rate
governed by the Arrhenius-like law. In this case, economic resource formally
plays the role of effective market temperature and the minimum level of
resource consumption is associated with activation energy. Such a coupling can
result in the collapsing effect opposite to thermal explosion, so that the
epidemic could ultimately drive the system to a collapse at nonzero activation
energy because of the limited resource. In this case, the system can no longer
stabilize and return to the stable pre-epidemic state or a poorer post-epidemic
state. We demonstrate that the system's collapse can partially be mitigated by
external subsidies meaning constant resource inflow from some external source
or by means of debt interpreted as a negative resource. We also consider a
simple quarantine scenario and show that it can lead to different socioeconomic
outcomes, depending on initial resource (market temperature) and the minimum
level of resource consumption (activation energy).
