The efficacy of vaccines in the context of SARS-CoV-2 and its variants: Role of Spatio-temporal boundary

  1. Durbar Roy
  2. Dipshikha Chakravortty
  3. Saptarshi Basu

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Abstract

The preference for a COVID-19 vaccine, among many available, may be difficult for common people and normally relies on efficacy values reported from clinical trials. Vaccine efficacy depends on statistical data from primary and secondary endpoints of a trial. This study provides a time-varying mathematical framework that compares two vaccines of contrasting efficacy (Pfizer-BioNTech and AstraZeneca-Oxford) using hypothetical trials with real-world data. Modeling shows that efficacies can fluctuate depending on the prevailing infection rate and demographics. The efficacy of AstraZeneca-Oxford can become comparable and even better than Pfizer-BioNTech, depending on the region and time of the clinical trials. We also introduce an idea of composite efficacy considering multi-variants and show that the efficacy of various vaccines shows differential sensitivity to the delta variant rampant in India.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.07.19.21260758: (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.

    About SciScore

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.19.21260758v2 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.07.19.21260758v1 on medRxiv