Back

COVID-19 immunization threshold(s): an analysis

Bautista Balbas, L. A.; Gil Conesa, M.; Bautista Balbas, B.; Alcaide Jimenez, A.; Rodriguez Caravaca, G.

2021-01-05 epidemiology
10.1101/2021.01.02.20248596 medRxiv
Show abstract

2As COVID-19 vaccine research efforts seem to be yielding the first tangible results, the proportion of individuals needed to reap the benefits of herd immunity is a key element from a Public Health programs perspective. This magnitude, termed the critical immunization threshold (q), can be obtained from the classical SIR model equilibrium equation, equaling (1 - 1/R0)/ {epsilon}, where R0 is the basic reproduction number and{epsilon} is the vaccine efficacy. When a significant proportion of the population is already immune, this becomes (n - 1/R0)/ {epsilon}, where n is the proportion of non-immune individuals. A similar equation can be obtained for short-term immunization thresholds(qt), which are dependent on Rt. qs for most countries are between 60-75% of the population. Current qt for most countries are between 20-40%. Therefore, the combination of gradual vaccination and other non-pharmaceutical interventions will mark the transition to the herd immunity, providing that the later turns out to be a feasible objective. Nevertheless, immunization through vaccination is a complex issue and many challenges might appear.

Matching journals

The top 6 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.

50% of probability mass above

"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.