The importance of sustained compliance with physical distancing during COVID-19 vaccination rollout

  1. Alexandra Teslya
  2. Ganna Rozhnova
  3. Thi Mui Pham
  4. Daphne A. van Wees
  5. Hendrik Nunner
  6. Noortje G. Godijk
  7. Martin Bootsma
  8. Mirjam E. Kretzschmar

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Abstract

Background

Increasing vaccination coverage against SARS-CoV-2 enabled relaxation of lockdowns in many countries in Europe. As the vaccination rollouts progressed, the public health authorities were seeking recommendations on the continuation of physical distancing measures during ongoing vaccination rollouts. Compliance with these measures was declining while more transmissible virus variants have emerged.

Methods

We used a SARS-CoV-2 transmission model to investigate the feedback between compliance, infection incidence, and vaccination coverage. We quantified our findings in terms of cumulative number of new hospitalisations three and six months after the start of vaccination.

Results

Our results suggest that the combination of fast waning compliance in non-vaccinated individuals, low compliance in vaccinated individuals, low vaccine efficacy against infection and more transmissible virus variants may result in a higher cumulative number of new hospitalisations than in a situation without vaccination. These adverse effects can be alleviated by deploying behavioural interventions that should preferably target both vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals. The choice of the most appropriate intervention depends on vaccination rate and vaccine efficacy against infection.

Conclusions

Supplementary behavioural interventions aiming to boost compliance to physical distancing measures can improve the outcome of vaccination programmes, until vaccination coverage is sufficiently high. For optimal results, these interventions should be selected based on the vaccine efficacy against infection and expected vaccination rate. While we considered the dynamics of SARS-CoV-2, the qualitative effects of the interplay between infectious disease spread and behavior on the outcomes of a vaccination programme can be used as guidance in a future similar pandemic.

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  1. Version published to 10.1038/s43856-022-00207-3
  2. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-390037/v3 on Research Square
  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.09.22.21263944: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Ethicsnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code and data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: Please consider improving the rainbow (“jet”) colormap(s) used on page 6. At least one figure is not accessible to readers with colorblindness and/or is not true to the data, i.e. not perceptually uniform.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.09.22.21263944v1 on medRxiv
  5. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-390037/v2 on Research Square
  6. Version published to 10.21203/rs.3.rs-390037/v1 on Research Square