Frailty variation models for susceptibility and exposure to SARS-CoV-2

  1. M. Gabriela M. Gomes
  2. Marcelo U. Ferreira
  3. Maria Chikina
  4. Wesley Pegden
  5. Ricardo Aguas

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Abstract

Individual variation in susceptibility and exposure is subject to selection by force of infection, accelerating the natural acquisition of immunity, and reducing herd immunity thresholds and epidemic final sizes. This is a manifestation of a wider population phenomenon known as “frailty variation” in demography. Despite this theoretical understanding, public health policies continue to be guided by mathematical models that leave out most of the relevant variation and as a result inflate projected infection burdens. Here we focus on the trajectories of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in England and Scotland. We fit models to series of daily deaths and estimate relevant epidemiological parameters, including coefficients of variation which we find in agreement with direct measurements based on published contact surveys. Our estimates are robust to whether the data series encompass one or two pandemic waves. We conclude that herd immunity thresholds are being reached with a larger contribution of vaccination in Scotland than in England, where naturally acquired immunity is higher. These results are relevant to global vaccination policies.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.25.21257766v2 on medRxiv
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.25.21257766: (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: 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.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.25.21257766v1 on medRxiv