Getting to zero quickly in the 2019-nCov epidemic with vaccines or rapid testing

  1. Gerardo Chowell
  2. Ranu Dhillon
  3. Devabhaktuni Srikrishna

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Abstract

Any plan for stopping the ongoing 2019-nCov epidemic must be based on a quantitative understanding of the proportion of the at-risk population that needs to be protected by effective control measures in order for transmission to decline sufficiently and quickly enough for the epidemic to end. Using an SEIR-type transmission model, we contrasted two alternate strategies by modeling the proportion of the population that needs to be protected from infection by one-time vaccination (assuming 100% effectiveness) or by testing with isolation and treatment of individuals within six, 24, or 48 hours of symptom onset. If R is currently 2.2, vaccination at the herd immunity coverage of 55% would drive R just below 1, but transmission could persist for years. Over 80% of coverage is required to end the epidemic in 6 months with population-wide vaccination. The epidemic could be ended in just under a year if testing with isolation and treatment reached 80% of symptomatically infected patients within 24 hours of symptom onset (assuming 10% asymptomatic transmission). The epidemic could be ended in six months if testing with isolation and treatment reached 90% of symptomatic patients. If 90% of symptomatic patients could be tested within six hours of symptoms appearing, the epidemic could be ended in under four months.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.02.03.20020271: (What is this?)

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

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board Statementnot detected.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    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.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.02.03.20020271v1 on medRxiv