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Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges

Countries around the world have observed reduced infections from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19 illness, primarily due to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns and social distancing measures designed to limit physical proximity between people. However, economies and s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Huntingford, Chris, Rawson, Thomas, Bonsall, Michael B.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8387873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34458218
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.633144
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author Huntingford, Chris
Rawson, Thomas
Bonsall, Michael B.
author_facet Huntingford, Chris
Rawson, Thomas
Bonsall, Michael B.
author_sort Huntingford, Chris
collection PubMed
description Countries around the world have observed reduced infections from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19 illness, primarily due to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns and social distancing measures designed to limit physical proximity between people. However, economies and societal interactions require restarting, and so lockdowns cannot continue indefinitely. Therefore, much hope is placed in using newly developed vaccines as a route back to normality, but this raises key questions about how they are shared. There are also emerging questions regarding travel. For instance, international business and trade necessitates at least some in-person exchanges, alongside restarting travel also for tourist purposes. By utilising a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Vaccinated (SIRV) mathematical model, we simulate the populations of two nations in parallel, where the first nation produces a vaccine and decides the extent to which it is shared with the second. Overlaying our mathematical structure is the virus-related effects of travel between the two nations. We find that even with extensive travel, nation one minimises its total number of deaths by simply retaining vaccines, aiming for full inoculation as fast as possible, suggesting that the risks posed by travel can be mitigated by rapidly vaccinating its own population. If instead we consider the total deaths i.e., sum of deaths of both nations, then such a policy of not sharing by nation one until full vaccination is highly sub-optimal. A policy of low initial sharing causes many more deaths in nation two than lives saved in nation one, raising important ethical issues. This imbalance in the health impact of vaccination provision must be considered as some countries begin to approach the point of extensive vaccination, while others lack the resources to do so.
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spelling pubmed-83878732021-08-27 Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges Huntingford, Chris Rawson, Thomas Bonsall, Michael B. Front Public Health Public Health Countries around the world have observed reduced infections from the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that causes COVID-19 illness, primarily due to non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns and social distancing measures designed to limit physical proximity between people. However, economies and societal interactions require restarting, and so lockdowns cannot continue indefinitely. Therefore, much hope is placed in using newly developed vaccines as a route back to normality, but this raises key questions about how they are shared. There are also emerging questions regarding travel. For instance, international business and trade necessitates at least some in-person exchanges, alongside restarting travel also for tourist purposes. By utilising a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered-Vaccinated (SIRV) mathematical model, we simulate the populations of two nations in parallel, where the first nation produces a vaccine and decides the extent to which it is shared with the second. Overlaying our mathematical structure is the virus-related effects of travel between the two nations. We find that even with extensive travel, nation one minimises its total number of deaths by simply retaining vaccines, aiming for full inoculation as fast as possible, suggesting that the risks posed by travel can be mitigated by rapidly vaccinating its own population. If instead we consider the total deaths i.e., sum of deaths of both nations, then such a policy of not sharing by nation one until full vaccination is highly sub-optimal. A policy of low initial sharing causes many more deaths in nation two than lives saved in nation one, raising important ethical issues. This imbalance in the health impact of vaccination provision must be considered as some countries begin to approach the point of extensive vaccination, while others lack the resources to do so. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-08-12 /pmc/articles/PMC8387873/ /pubmed/34458218 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.633144 Text en Copyright © 2021 Huntingford, Rawson and Bonsall. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Public Health
Huntingford, Chris
Rawson, Thomas
Bonsall, Michael B.
Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title_full Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title_fullStr Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title_full_unstemmed Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title_short Optimal COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Between Two Nations That Also Have Extensive Travel Exchanges
title_sort optimal covid-19 vaccine sharing between two nations that also have extensive travel exchanges
topic Public Health
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8387873/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34458218
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.633144
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