Can a vaccine-led approach end the NSW outbreak in 100 days, or at least substantially reduce morbidity and mortality?

  1. Laxman Bablani
  2. Tim Wilson
  3. Hassan Andrabi
  4. Vijaya Sundararajan
  5. Driss Ait Oukarim
  6. Patrick Abraham
  7. Jason Thompson
  8. Tony Blakely

Reviewed by

Read the full article

Listed in

Log in to save this article

Abstract

Abstract Background and Aims The New South Wales (NSW) COVID-19 outbreak is at 478 daily cases on August 16, 2021. Our aims were to: 1) estimate the time required to reach ≤5 cases per day under three lockdown strengths (weak, moderate, strong), and four vaccination rollouts: (a) per the original plan, (b) prioritizing essential workers, (c) b plus rapid vaccination of 25% of <60-year-olds with AstraZeneca (AZ25), and (d) b plus rapid vaccination of 50% of <60-year-olds with AstraZeneca (AZ50). 2) estimate the number of cases, hospitalizations, and deaths in the 100 days after 1/August for the 12 scenarios. Methods An agent-based model was adapted to NSW and the Delta variant. Hospitalization and mortality rates for unvaccinated COVID-19 infections were doubled given the virulence of Delta. Results The business-as-usual rollout fully vaccinates 50%, 70% and 80% of >16-year-olds by 10/Oct, 21/Nov, and 28/Dec, respectively. This reduced to 1/Oct, 30/Oct, and 22/Nov for the fastest (AZ50) rollout. A strong lockdown with a rapid vaccine rollout was the fastest to reach ≤5 cases (14-day average), with a median of 78 days (90% Uncertainty interval 61 - 103) or 18/Oct, compared to 207 days (166 - 254) or 24/Feb for a weak lockdown with no rollout acceleration. Increased lockdown strength had more impact than rollout acceleration. Under the AZ25 vaccination scenario, there were 1,440 (90% UI 262 - 10,600 deaths in the first 100 days of cases under a weak lockdown, compared to 71 (90% UI 26 - 178) under a strong lockdown scenario. Conclusion NSW will likely achieve 70% vaccination of >16-year-olds before reaching ≤5 daily cases. Accelerating the vaccine rollout is important for the medium-term, but in the short-term increased restriction strength was more effective at reducing caseload (and subsequently mortality and hospitalisation) than accelerating the vaccine rollout.

Article activity feed

  3. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.08.18.21262252: (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: 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

    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.

  4. Version published to 10.1101/2021.08.18.21262252v1 on medRxiv