Time-varying optimization of COVID-19 vaccine prioritization in the context of limited vaccination capacity

Shasha Han, Jun Cai, Juan Yang, Juanjuan Zhang, Qianhui Wu, Wen Zheng, Huilin Shi, Marco Ajelli, Xiao-Hua Zhou, Hongjie Yu
2021 Nature Communications  
AbstractDynamically adapting the allocation of COVID-19 vaccines to the evolving epidemiological situation could be key to reduce COVID-19 burden. Here we developed a data-driven mechanistic model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission to explore optimal vaccine prioritization strategies in China. We found that a time-varying vaccination program (i.e., allocating vaccines to different target groups as the epidemic evolves) can be highly beneficial as it is capable of simultaneously achieving different
more » ... tives (e.g., minimizing the number of deaths and of infections). Our findings suggest that boosting the vaccination capacity up to 2.5 million first doses per day (0.17% rollout speed) or higher could greatly reduce COVID-19 burden, should a new wave start to unfold in China with reproduction number ≤1.5. The highest priority categories are consistent under a broad range of assumptions. Finally, a high vaccination capacity in the early phase of the vaccination campaign is key to achieve large gains of strategic prioritizations.
doi:10.1038/s41467-021-24872-5 fatcat:mbvx6exlajadtaexnkg6sschky