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Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea

Vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are currently administered in South Korea; however, vaccine supply is limited. Considering constraints in vaccine supply and the emergence of variant strains, we evaluated the impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vacci...

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Autor principal: Shim, Eunha
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8306637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34300029
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147578
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author Shim, Eunha
author_facet Shim, Eunha
author_sort Shim, Eunha
collection PubMed
description Vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are currently administered in South Korea; however, vaccine supply is limited. Considering constraints in vaccine supply and the emergence of variant strains, we evaluated the impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination program in reducing incidence, ICU hospitalization, and deaths in South Korea. We developed an age-structured model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission parameterized with Korean demographics and age-specific COVID-19 outcomes. Using our model, we analyzed the impact of the COVID-19 vaccination program during the fourth wave of the pandemic in South Korea in reducing disease burden. We projected that the vaccination program can reduce the overall attack rate to 3.9% from 6.9% without vaccination, over 150 days, starting from 5 July 2021. The highest relative reduction (50%) was observed among individuals aged 50–59 years. Vaccination markedly reduced adverse outcomes, such as ICU hospitalizations and deaths, decreasing them by 45% and 43%, respectively. In the presence of the Delta variant, vaccination is expected to reduce the overall attack rate to 11.9% from 26.9%. Our results indicate that the impact of vaccination can be substantially affected by the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Furthermore, herd immunity is unlikely to be achieved with the potential emergence of the Delta variant, inconsistent with the blueprint of the South Korean government.
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spelling pubmed-83066372021-07-25 Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea Shim, Eunha Int J Environ Res Public Health Article Vaccines against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are currently administered in South Korea; however, vaccine supply is limited. Considering constraints in vaccine supply and the emergence of variant strains, we evaluated the impact of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccination program in reducing incidence, ICU hospitalization, and deaths in South Korea. We developed an age-structured model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission parameterized with Korean demographics and age-specific COVID-19 outcomes. Using our model, we analyzed the impact of the COVID-19 vaccination program during the fourth wave of the pandemic in South Korea in reducing disease burden. We projected that the vaccination program can reduce the overall attack rate to 3.9% from 6.9% without vaccination, over 150 days, starting from 5 July 2021. The highest relative reduction (50%) was observed among individuals aged 50–59 years. Vaccination markedly reduced adverse outcomes, such as ICU hospitalizations and deaths, decreasing them by 45% and 43%, respectively. In the presence of the Delta variant, vaccination is expected to reduce the overall attack rate to 11.9% from 26.9%. Our results indicate that the impact of vaccination can be substantially affected by the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 variants. Furthermore, herd immunity is unlikely to be achieved with the potential emergence of the Delta variant, inconsistent with the blueprint of the South Korean government. MDPI 2021-07-16 /pmc/articles/PMC8306637/ /pubmed/34300029 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147578 Text en © 2021 by the author. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Shim, Eunha
Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title_full Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title_fullStr Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title_full_unstemmed Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title_short Projecting the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Variants and the Vaccination Program on the Fourth Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Korea
title_sort projecting the impact of sars-cov-2 variants and the vaccination program on the fourth wave of the covid-19 pandemic in south korea
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8306637/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34300029
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147578
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