Herd immunity and a vaccination game: An experimental study

Sun²,

Journal of Medical Virology

2020

The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the novel virus severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has claimed many lives worldwide. To combat the pandemic, multiple types of vaccines are under development with unprecedented rapidity. Theoretically, future vaccination against COVID-19 may fall into long-term costly guerrilla warfare between SARS-CoV-2 and humans. Elimination of SARS-CoV-2 through vaccination to avoid the potential longterm costly guerrilla warfare, if possible, is highly desired and worth intensive consideration. Human influenza pandemics emerging in 1957, 1968, and 2009 established strong global herd immunity and led to the elimination of three human influenza viruses, which circulated worldwide for years before the pandemics. Moreover, both clade 7.2 of subtype H5 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus and subtype H7N9 avian influenza virus circulated in poultry in China for years, and they have been virtually eliminated through mass vaccination in recent years. These facts suggest that the rapid establishment of global herd immunity through mass vaccination using an appropriate vaccine could eliminate SARS-CoV-2. The coming 2 years are a golden time for elimination through vaccination, which requires tremendous national and international collaboration. This review also prioritizes the efficacy of vaccines for COVID-19 and elucidates the importance of the development of more live vaccines for COVID-19.

Section: Applicationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Potential for elimination of SAR‐CoV‐2 through vaccination as inspired by elimination of multiple influenza viruses through natural pandemics or mass vaccination

Sun²,

Journal of Medical Virology

2020

“…• A subsidy to decrease the cash cost of vaccination, • A nationwide public vaccination campaign to lower the psychological cost of vaccination, and • To minimize the side-effects of vaccines. 67 On the other hand, theory can define the level of vaccination coverage required for the prevention and elimination of epidemics, but success depends on:…”

Section: Herd Immunity (Or Community Immunity)mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Vaccine-induced herd immunity is also an important concept of epidemic theory regarding: A subsidy to decrease the cash cost of vaccination, A nationwide public vaccination campaign to lower the psychological cost of vaccination, and To minimize the side-effects of vaccines. 67 …”

Section: Herd Immunity (Or Community Immunity)mentioning

confidence: 99%

<p>COVID-19 Pandemic: A Compressive Review on Gender, Herd Immunity, and Physiological Mechanisms</p>

Sisay

Tolessa

2020

RMHP

Background Researchers and scientists experienced the spread and aid recovery of the COVID-19 pandemic with a condition of great uncertainty. With limited understanding of SARS-CoV-2, current attempts at controlling its spread are focused on the suppressing approach (to reduce a sustained endogenous transmission) and the mitigating approach (to reduce the growth rate of the epidemic). On the one hand, while there has been no firm explanation, many governments have considered immunity passport and herd immunity for paths out of restrictive physical distancing measures imposed to control the spread of SARS-CoV-2 but were not successful. Purpose of Review Herein, we attempted to systematize the lessons and shreds of evidence related to the spectrum of illness, the physiological mechanisms of host susceptibility, herd immunity, immunity passport, gender disparities, and severe challenges and uncertainties posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. We hope that the insights provided in this review will help raise the effectiveness of the treatment policies and preventive measures required to end the pandemic. Recent Findings The use of immunity passports is suggested to certify an individual at low risk of acquiring or transmitting SARS-CoV-2. But, an individual might nevertheless carry the virus at similar levels and for a similar duration to those previously uninfected, with an unchanged potential for transmission. Vaccine-induced herd immunity is a complex issue inherent to a vaccine and the population receiving the vaccine. The central epidemiological questions about are as follows: what proportion of the population should be vaccinated to meet elimination (in a local program), eradication (in a global program) or a defined level of control? How is this affected by demographic factors (such as gender)? What is the best age at which to immunize? Besides, although age-dependent mortality risk is estimated to be higher for men and older people, such interpretation across gender, age groups, and countries, however, must be accepted with caution at present. Summary COVID-19 has taught us that health is the basis of global wealth and international solidarity is an essential response and a superior approach to isolationism. Hence, we must be clear about what the alternatives are when evaluating the merits of different ways of tackling this pandemic both in the short term as well as in the long term.

“…For the study of infectious diseases like COVID-19, SARS, and Ebola, most of the literature used descriptive research or model methods to assess indicators and analyze the effect of interventions, such as combining migration data to evaluate the potential infection rate [18,19], understanding the impact of factors like environmental temperature and vaccines that might be potentially linked to the diseases [20,21], using basic and time-varying reproduction number (R 0 & R t ) to estimate changeable transmission dynamics of epidemic conditions [22][23][24][25][26][27], calculating and predicting the fatal risk to display any stage of outbreak [28][29][30], or providing suggestions and interventions from risk management and other related aspects based on the results of modeling tools or historical lessons [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]. Some literature only used one kind of model to simulate and predict the course of diseases.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting and analyzing the COVID-19 epidemic in China: Based on SEIRD, LSTM and GWR models

Liu¹,

Wang²,

Liu³

et al. 2020

PLoS ONE

In December 2019, the novel coronavirus pneumonia (COVID-19) occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China. The epidemic quickly broke out and spread throughout the country. Now it becomes a pandemic that affects the whole world. In this study, three models were used to fit and predict the epidemic situation in China: a modified SEIRD (Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Dead) dynamic model, a neural network method LSTM (Long Short-Term Memory), and a GWR (Geographically Weighted Regression) model reflecting spatial heterogeneity. Overall, all the three models performed well with great accuracy. The dynamic SEIRD prediction APE (absolute percent error) of China had been � 1.0% since Mid-February. The LSTM model showed comparable accuracy. The GWR model took into account the influence of geographical differences, with R 2 = 99.98% in fitting and 97.95% in prediction. Wilcoxon test showed that none of the three models outperformed the other two at the significance level of 0.05. The parametric analysis of the infectious rate and recovery rate demonstrated that China's national policies had effectively slowed down the spread of the epidemic. Furthermore, the models in this study provided a wide range of implications for other countries to predict the short-term and long-term trend of COVID-19, and to evaluate the intensity and effect of their interventions.