COVID-19 immunization threshold(s): an analysis
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Abstract
As COVID-19 vaccine research efforts seem to be yielding the first tangible results, the proportion of individuals needed to reap the benefits of herd immunity is a key element from a Public Health programs perspective.
This magnitude, termed the critical immunization threshold ( q ), can be obtained from the classical SIR model equilibrium equation, equaling ( 1 − 1 /R 0 )/ ϵ , where R 0 is the basic reproduction number and ϵ is the vaccine efficacy. When a significant proportion of the population is already immune, this becomes (n − 1 /R 0 )/ ϵ , where n is the proportion of non-immune individuals. A similar equation can be obtained for short-term immunization thresholds( q t ), which are dependent on R t .
q s for most countries are between 60-75% of the population. Current q t for most countries are between 20-40%.
Therefore, the combination of gradual vaccination and other non-pharmaceutical interventions will mark the transition to the herd immunity, providing that the later turns out to be a feasible objective. Nevertheless, immunization through vaccination is a complex issue and many challenges might appear.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.02.20248596: (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
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This calculation has several limitations. We have used epidemiological models that do not take into account population heterogeneity and the non-random habits of particular mixing groups, an important limitation of herd immunity estimations19. As vaccination and contacts will not be random, this discussion is and approximation. Additionally, R0 is always an estimate, and considerable differences can be observed between studies, rendering q …
SciScore for 10.1101/2021.01.02.20248596: (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
No key resources detected.
Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your code.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This calculation has several limitations. We have used epidemiological models that do not take into account population heterogeneity and the non-random habits of particular mixing groups, an important limitation of herd immunity estimations19. As vaccination and contacts will not be random, this discussion is and approximation. Additionally, R0 is always an estimate, and considerable differences can be observed between studies, rendering q calculation uncertain. Population growth, migrations and deceases have not been included. (If pre-pandemic population is used, newborns are susceptible, and infected-and-deceased should be excluded from the immunes). Finally, vaccination and immunity is a complex process: Virus mutations and strains, vaccine hesitancy, efficacy in high-risk groups, protection duration, mucosal immunity, etc..5 Evidence is scarce regarding the duration of COVID-19 immunity3, and different kinds of immunity against other coronavirus might wane over years20. Several rare cases of reinfections have been reported21, but still orders of magnitude smaller than the number of new infections; and booster vaccine doses might be required. As advantages, this study can help better understand the road lying ahead. In the short term, the Rt will be kept lower than 2 in many areas due to contact restrictions, remote working, etc. Despite the public and private efforts, there is uncertainty regarding the number of vaccine courses available by the end of 2021 for many countr...
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.
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