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Volume 8
Issue 4
10.3390/vaccines8040761
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Article

Is a COVID-19 Vaccine Likely to Make Things Worse?

by
Stéphanie M. C. Abo
1 and
Stacey R. Smith?
2,*
1
Department of Applied Mathematics, The University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 4A1, Canada
2
Department of Mathematics and Faculty of Medicine, The University of Ottawa, 150 Louis-Pasteur Pvt, Ottawa, ON K1N 6N5, Canada
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Vaccines 2020, 8(4), 761; https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8040761
Received: 16 November 2020 / Revised: 6 December 2020 / Accepted: 11 December 2020 / Published: 14 December 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Vaccines: Uptake and Equity in Times of the COVID-19 Pandemic)
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Abstract

In order to limit the disease burden and economic costs associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to understand how effective and widely distributed a vaccine must be in order to have a beneficial impact on public health. To evaluate the potential effect of a vaccine, we developed risk equations for the daily risk of COVID-19 infection both currently and after a vaccine becomes available. Our risk equations account for the basic transmission probability of COVID-19 (β) and the lowered risk due to various protection options: physical distancing; face coverings such as masks, goggles, face shields or other medical equipment; handwashing; and vaccination. We found that the outcome depends significantly on the degree of vaccine uptake: if uptake is higher than 80%, then the daily risk can be cut by 50% or more. However, if less than 40% of people get vaccinated and other protection options are abandoned—as may well happen in the wake of a COVID-19 vaccine—then introducing even an excellent vaccine will produce a worse outcome than our current situation. It is thus critical that effective education strategies are employed in tandem with vaccine rollout. View Full-Text
Keywords: COVID-19; risk equations; vaccine; latin hypercube sampling; partial rank correlation coefficients COVID-19; risk equations; vaccine; latin hypercube sampling; partial rank correlation coefficients
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MDPI and ACS Style

Abo, S.M.C.; Smith?, S.R. Is a COVID-19 Vaccine Likely to Make Things Worse? Vaccines 2020, 8, 761. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8040761

AMA Style

Abo SMC, Smith? SR. Is a COVID-19 Vaccine Likely to Make Things Worse? Vaccines. 2020; 8(4):761. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8040761

Chicago/Turabian Style

Abo, Stéphanie M.C., and Stacey R. Smith?. 2020. "Is a COVID-19 Vaccine Likely to Make Things Worse?" Vaccines 8, no. 4: 761. https://doi.org/10.3390/vaccines8040761

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