Vaccine optimization for COVID-19: Who to vaccinate first?
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Abstract
The optimal use of COVID-19 vaccine depends mainly on how efficacious the vaccine is and how many doses are available.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.14.20175257: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study has several limitations. Our model assumes that both natural and vaccine-acquired immunity will last for at least one year. We do not yet know how long immunity against SARS-CoV-2 will last. There is some evidence that neutralizing antibodies become undetectable a few weeks following infection (?), though it is unclear how this correlates with immunity. If immunity were short-lived, then these results would only be …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.14.20175257: (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: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:This study has several limitations. Our model assumes that both natural and vaccine-acquired immunity will last for at least one year. We do not yet know how long immunity against SARS-CoV-2 will last. There is some evidence that neutralizing antibodies become undetectable a few weeks following infection (?), though it is unclear how this correlates with immunity. If immunity were short-lived, then these results would only be applicable for that duration. Further, we assumed that asymptomatic and symptomatic infections would confer equal immunity. However, it is conceivable that asymptomatic infections might result in a weaker immune response (31). We chose four metrics of disease burden to minimize. However, other metrics, such as minimization of asymptomatic infections, or a combination of all of these metrics, might be key to stop the spread of the epidemic. We have identified optimal allocation strategies, and once more information about a vaccine characteristics is known, validating our allocation strategies with more complex models is welcome. To avoid confounding effects from different interventions, we optimized vaccine allocation assuming no social distancing interventions in place. In reality, vaccination, at least at the beginning, would take place while some social distancing interventions remain in effect. Under those circumstances, we would need less vaccine to control the epidemic. In that sense, our results are conservative. To keep the optimization from being...
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.
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SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.14.20175257: (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.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
This study has several limitations. Our model assumes that both naturally- and vaccineacquired immunity will last for at least one year. We do not yet know how long immunity against SARS-CoV-2 will last and there is some evidence that neutralizing antibodies become undetectable after just a few weeks following infection (20), though it is unclear how this correlates with immunity. If immunity were short-lived, then these results would only …
SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.14.20175257: (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.
Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
This study has several limitations. Our model assumes that both naturally- and vaccineacquired immunity will last for at least one year. We do not yet know how long immunity against SARS-CoV-2 will last and there is some evidence that neutralizing antibodies become undetectable after just a few weeks following infection (20), though it is unclear how this correlates with immunity. If immunity were short-lived, then these results would only be applicable for that duration. Further, we assumed that asymptomatic and symptomatic infections would confer equal immunity. However, some studies have suggested that asymptomatic infections might result in a weaker immune response (21). We utilized mortality and hospitalization rates that were based on the epidemic in Wuhan, but these rates may vary vastly in different regions. Further, we compared modeled peak hospitalizations to current state goals for hospital bed occupancy, but deterministic models tend to overestimate the transmission dynamics, so it is possible that a lower vaccine effectiveness or a lower vaccination coverage could achieve the same goals. To keep the optimization from being unreasonably long, our model does not capture geographical differences or other heterogeneities. We assumed a vaccine that would only reduce susceptibility to infection, but other effects, e.g., a reduction in disease severity, might occur. We have identified optimal allocation strategies and once more information about a vaccine characteristics is known, validating our allocation strategies with more complex models is welcome. To avoid confounding effects from different interventions, we optimized vaccine allocation assuming no social distancing interventions in place. In reality, vaccination, at least at the beginning, would take place while some social distancing interventions remain in effect. Under those circumstances, we would need less vaccine to control the epidemic. In that sense, our results are conservative. We computed the optimal allocation strategies utilizing age as the sole risk factor. However, several studies (22) have shown that, as a result of health systems with systemic health and social inequalities, people from racial and ethnic minority groups are at increased risk for getting sick and dying from COVID-19 in certain countries. This is a crucial consideration that will be included in further studies and can point towards who, within a given age-group, should get the vaccine first. We believe that these results can provide a quantification of the effectiveness of different allocation scenarios under four metrics of disease burden and can be used as an evidence-based guidance to vaccine prioritization.
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.
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