How unequal vaccine distribution promotes the evolution of vaccine escape

  1. Philip J Gerrish
  2. Fernando Saldaña
  3. Benjamin Galeota-Sprung
  4. Alexandre Colato
  5. Erika E Rodriguez
  6. Jorge X Velasco Hernández

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Abstract

Health officials warn that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines must be uniformly distributed within and among countries if we are to quell the ongoing pandemic. Yet there has been little critical assessment of the underlying reasons for this warning. Here, we explicitly show why vaccine equity is necessary. Perhaps counter-intuitively, we find that vaccine escape mutants are less likely to come from highly vaccinated regions where there is strong selection pressure favoring vaccine escape and more likely to come from neighboring unvaccinated regions where there is no selection favoring escape. Unvaccinated geographic regions thus provide evolutionary reservoirs from which new strains can arise and cause new epidemics within neighboring vaccinated regions and beyond. Our findings have timely implications for vaccine rollout strategies and public health policy.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.03.27.21254453: (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.
    • Thank you for including a protocol registration statement.

    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 10.1101/2021.03.27.21254453 on medRxiv