US vaccine rollout was close to optimal at reducing deaths and infections, according to a model comparing 17.5 million alternative approaches

The big idea The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s plan for who gets vaccines and in what order saved nearly as many lives and prevented nearly as many infections as a theoretically perfect rollout, according to a new mathematical model we developed to assess the rollout of COVID–19 inocu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Conversation : Science + Technology 2021-11-17
Main Authors: McCombs, Audrey L, Kadelka, Claus
Format: Newspaper Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Coronaviruses
COVID-19 vaccines
Disease control
Infections
Mathematical models
Vaccines
Online Access:Request full text
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Summary:The big idea The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s plan for who gets vaccines and in what order saved nearly as many lives and prevented nearly as many infections as a theoretically perfect rollout, according to a new mathematical model we developed to assess the rollout of COVID–19 inoculations in the U.S. In December 2020, with a limited number of vaccines available, the CDC had to make a hard decision: According to our model, the CDC’s decisions to not vaccinate children initially and prioritize health care and other essential workers over nonessential workers were both correct. By changing model inputs, we were able to show how optimal rollout strategies should change given different vaccine hesitancy rates and for different vaccines that can protect in different ways against infection or death.