Viral Variants and Vaccinations: If We Can Change the COVID-19 Vaccine, Should We?

As we close in on one year since the COVID-19 pandemic began, hope has been placed on bringing the virus under control through mass administration of recently developed vaccines. Unfortunately, newly emerged, fast-spreading strains of COVID-19 threaten to undermine progress by interfering with vaccine efficacy. While a long-term solution to this challenge would be to develop vaccines that simultaneously target multiple different COVID-19 variants, this approach faces both developmental and regulatory hurdles. A simpler option would be to switch the target of the current vaccine to better match the newest viral variant. I use a stochastic simulation to determine when it is better to target a newly emerged viral variant and when it is better to target the dominant but potentially less transmissible strain. My simulation results suggest that it is almost always better to target the faster spreading strain, even when the initial prevalence of this variant is much lower. In scenarios where targeting the slower spreading variant is best, all vaccination strategies perform relatively well, meaning that the choice of vaccination strategy has a small effect on public health outcomes. In scenarios where targeting the faster spreading variant is best, use of vaccines against the faster spreading viral variant can save many lives. My results provide rule of thumb guidance for those making critical decisions about vaccine formulation over the coming months.