This article is a Preprint
Preprints are preliminary research reports that have not been certified by peer review. They should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Preprints posted online allow authors to receive rapid feedback and the entire scientific community can appraise the work for themselves and respond appropriately. Those comments are posted alongside the preprints for anyone to read them and serve as a post publication assessment.
The Balancing Role of Distribution Speed against Varying Efficacy Levels of COVID-19 Vaccines under Variants
Preprint
in English
| medRxiv
| ID: ppmedrxiv-21255217
ABSTRACT
Mutations in SARS-CoV-2 raised concerns about diminishing vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 caused by particular variants. Even with high initial efficacy, if a vaccines efficacy drops significantly against variants, or if it cannot be distributed quickly, it is uncertain whether the vaccine can provide better health outcomes than other vaccines. Hence, we evaluated the trade-offs between the speed of distribution vs. efficacy against infection of multiple vaccines when variants emerge by utilizing a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Deceased (SIR-D) model and assessing the level of infection attack rate (IAR). Our results show that speed is a key factor to a successful immunization strategy to control the COVID-19 pandemic even when the emerging variants may reduce the efficacy of a vaccine. Due to supply-chain challenges, the accessibility and distribution of the vaccines have been hindered in many regions, especially in low-income countries, while the second or third wave of the pandemic has occurred due to the variants. Understanding the tradeoffs between speed and efficacy and distributing vaccines that are available as quickly as possible are crucial to eradicate the pandemic before new variants spread.
cc_by_nc_nd
Full text:
Available
Collection:
Preprints
Database:
medRxiv
Type of study:
Experimental_studies
Language:
English
Year:
2021
Document type:
Preprint