Increasing viral transmission paradoxically reduces progression rates to severe COVID-19 during endemic transition

  1. Hyukpyo Hong
  2. Ji Yun Noh
  3. Hyojung Lee
  4. Sunhwa Choi
  5. Boseung Choi
  6. Jae Kyoung Kim
  7. Eui-Cheol Shin

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Abstract

Natural infection with SARS-CoV-2 or vaccination induces virus-specific immunity protecting hosts from infection and severe disease. While the infection-preventing immunity gradually declines, the severity-reducing immunity is relatively well preserved. Here, based on the different longevity of these distinct immunities, we develop a mathematical model to estimate courses of endemic transition of COVID-19. Our analysis demonstrates that high viral transmission unexpectedly reduces the rates of progression to severe COVID-19 during the course of endemic transition despite increased numbers of infection cases. Our study also shows that high viral transmission amongst populations with high vaccination coverages paradoxically accelerates the endemic transition of COVID-19 with reduced numbers of severe cases. These results provide critical insights for driving public health policies in the era of ‘living with COVID-19’.

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    SciScore for 10.1101/2022.02.09.22270633: (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 and data.

    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.

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    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
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    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

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  2. Version published to 10.1101/2022.02.09.22270633 on medRxiv
  3. Version published to 10.4110/in.2022.22.e23