Vaccinating children against COVID-19 is crucial to protect schools and communities

  1. Erik T Rosenstrom
  2. Jessica Mele
  3. Julie S Ivy
  4. Maria E Mayorga
  5. Mehul D Patel
  6. Kristen Hassmiller Lich
  7. Paul L Delamater
  8. Raymond L Smith
  9. Julie L Swann

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Abstract

To evaluate the joint impact of childhood vaccination rates and school masking policies on community transmission and severe outcomes due to COVID-19, we utilized a stochastic, agent-based simulation of North Carolina to test 24 health policy scenarios. In these scenarios, we varied the childhood (ages 5 to 19) vaccination rate relative to the adult's (ages 20 to 64) vaccination rate and the masking relaxation policies in schools. We measured the overall incidence of disease, COVID-19-related hospitalization, and mortality from 2021 July 1 to 2023 July 1. Our simulation estimates that removing all masks in schools in January 2022 could lead to a 31% to 45%, 23% to 35%, and 13% to 19% increase in cumulative infections for ages 5 to 9, 10 to 19, and the total population, respectively, depending on the childhood vaccination rate. Additionally, achieving a childhood vaccine uptake rate of 50% of adults could lead to a 31% to 39% reduction in peak hospitalizations overall masking scenarios compared with not vaccinating this group. Finally, our simulation estimates that increasing vaccination uptake for the entire eligible population can reduce peak hospitalizations in 2022 by an average of 83% and 87% across all masking scenarios compared to the scenarios where no children are vaccinated. Our simulation suggests that high vaccination uptake among both children and adults is necessary to mitigate the increase in infections from mask removal in schools and workplaces.

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  1. Version published to 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac081
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.12.08.21267496: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Experimental Models: Organisms/Strains
    SentencesResources
    Each agent was assigned to one of five age groups (0-4, 5-9, 10-19, 20-64, or 65+), one of four race/ethnicity groups (Non-Hispanic White, Non-Hispanic Black, Hispanic, and Non-Hispanic Other), a school or workplace peer group if applicable (i.e., 5-19, “school-age” or 20-64, “working-age”), a household group where the size is dependent on age and race/ethnicity, and a mask wearing attribute, which is age-based and scenario dependent.
    Non-Hispanic White
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    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: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    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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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.12.08.21267496v1 on medRxiv