August 17, 2020

Vaccine Optimization for COVID-19 Who to Vaccinate First

Category: Article Summary

Topic: Modeling and Prediction

• [Preprint, not peer-reviewed] Matrajt et al. used an age-stratified model to determine optimal vaccine allocation for a population with an age distribution based on Washington State. Results suggest that 70% vaccine effectiveness (VE) would be enough to substantially mitigate the ongoing pandemic if at least 50% of the population is optimally vaccinated. For a low vaccination coverage among the population (<20%), the optimal allocation to minimize death is to vaccinate the high-risk (older) age-groups first, but the optimal allocation changes in a scenario with higher coverage (>40-60%) to prioritize vaccine to the high-transmission groups (those aged 20-50 and children) first.  

Matrajt et al. (Aug 16, 2020). Vaccine Optimization for COVID-19 Who to Vaccinate First. Pre-print downloaded Aug 17 from https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.08.14.20175257