Evidence for immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from epidemiological data series

Abstract

The duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is uncertain. Delineating immune memory typically requires longitudinal serological studies that track antibody prevalence in the same cohort for an extended time. However, this information is needed in faster timescales. Notably, the dynamics of an epidemic where recovered patients become immune for any period should differ significantly from those of one where the recovered promptly become susceptible. Here, we exploit this difference to provide a reliable protocol that can estimate immunity early in an epidemic. We verify this protocol with synthetic data, discuss its limitations, and then apply it to evaluate human immunity to SARS-CoV-2 in mortality data series from New York City. Our results indicate that New York's mortality figures are incompatible with immunity lasting anything below 105 or above 211 days (90% CI.), and set an example on how to assess immune memory in emerging pandemics before serological studies can be deployed.

Evidence for immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from epidemiological data series

“…Underlying data Daily time series summary tables, including confirmed, deaths and recovered are available from: https://github.com/CSSEGISand-Data/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_ time_series Archived time series data as at time of publication: http://doi. org/10.5281/zenodo.4452124 50 Extended data Repository name: Zenodo: Supplementary Material and Code of Evidence for immunity to SARS-CoV-2 from epidemiological data series, http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4452124 50 .…”