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Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves

Mass vaccination offers a promising exit strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as vaccination progresses, demands to lift restrictions increase, despite most of the population remaining susceptible. Using our age-stratified SEIRD-ICU compartmental model and curated epidemiological and vaccina...

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Autores principales: Bauer, Simon, Contreras, Sebastian, Dehning, Jonas, Linden, Matthias, Iftekhar, Emil, Mohr, Sebastian B., Olivera-Nappa, Alvaro, Priesemann, Viola
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8412259/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34473693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009288
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author Bauer, Simon
Contreras, Sebastian
Dehning, Jonas
Linden, Matthias
Iftekhar, Emil
Mohr, Sebastian B.
Olivera-Nappa, Alvaro
Priesemann, Viola
author_facet Bauer, Simon
Contreras, Sebastian
Dehning, Jonas
Linden, Matthias
Iftekhar, Emil
Mohr, Sebastian B.
Olivera-Nappa, Alvaro
Priesemann, Viola
author_sort Bauer, Simon
collection PubMed
description Mass vaccination offers a promising exit strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as vaccination progresses, demands to lift restrictions increase, despite most of the population remaining susceptible. Using our age-stratified SEIRD-ICU compartmental model and curated epidemiological and vaccination data, we quantified the rate (relative to vaccination progress) at which countries can lift non-pharmaceutical interventions without overwhelming their healthcare systems. We analyzed scenarios ranging from immediately lifting restrictions (accepting high mortality and morbidity) to reducing case numbers to a level where test-trace-and-isolate (TTI) programs efficiently compensate for local spreading events. In general, the age-dependent vaccination roll-out implies a transient decrease of more than ten years in the average age of ICU patients and deceased. The pace of vaccination determines the speed of lifting restrictions; Taking the European Union (EU) as an example case, all considered scenarios allow for steadily increasing contacts starting in May 2021 and relaxing most restrictions by autumn 2021. Throughout summer 2021, only mild contact restrictions will remain necessary. However, only high vaccine uptake can prevent further severe waves. Across EU countries, seroprevalence impacts the long-term success of vaccination campaigns more strongly than age demographics. In addition, we highlight the need for preventive measures to reduce contagion in school settings throughout the year 2021, where children might be drivers of contagion because of them remaining susceptible. Strategies that maintain low case numbers, instead of high ones, reduce infections and deaths by factors of eleven and five, respectively. In general, policies with low case numbers significantly benefit from vaccination, as the overall reduction in susceptibility will further diminish viral spread. Keeping case numbers low is the safest long-term strategy because it considerably reduces mortality and morbidity and offers better preparedness against emerging escape or more contagious virus variants while still allowing for higher contact numbers (freedom) with progressing vaccinations.
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spelling pubmed-84122592021-09-03 Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves Bauer, Simon Contreras, Sebastian Dehning, Jonas Linden, Matthias Iftekhar, Emil Mohr, Sebastian B. Olivera-Nappa, Alvaro Priesemann, Viola PLoS Comput Biol Research Article Mass vaccination offers a promising exit strategy for the COVID-19 pandemic. However, as vaccination progresses, demands to lift restrictions increase, despite most of the population remaining susceptible. Using our age-stratified SEIRD-ICU compartmental model and curated epidemiological and vaccination data, we quantified the rate (relative to vaccination progress) at which countries can lift non-pharmaceutical interventions without overwhelming their healthcare systems. We analyzed scenarios ranging from immediately lifting restrictions (accepting high mortality and morbidity) to reducing case numbers to a level where test-trace-and-isolate (TTI) programs efficiently compensate for local spreading events. In general, the age-dependent vaccination roll-out implies a transient decrease of more than ten years in the average age of ICU patients and deceased. The pace of vaccination determines the speed of lifting restrictions; Taking the European Union (EU) as an example case, all considered scenarios allow for steadily increasing contacts starting in May 2021 and relaxing most restrictions by autumn 2021. Throughout summer 2021, only mild contact restrictions will remain necessary. However, only high vaccine uptake can prevent further severe waves. Across EU countries, seroprevalence impacts the long-term success of vaccination campaigns more strongly than age demographics. In addition, we highlight the need for preventive measures to reduce contagion in school settings throughout the year 2021, where children might be drivers of contagion because of them remaining susceptible. Strategies that maintain low case numbers, instead of high ones, reduce infections and deaths by factors of eleven and five, respectively. In general, policies with low case numbers significantly benefit from vaccination, as the overall reduction in susceptibility will further diminish viral spread. Keeping case numbers low is the safest long-term strategy because it considerably reduces mortality and morbidity and offers better preparedness against emerging escape or more contagious virus variants while still allowing for higher contact numbers (freedom) with progressing vaccinations. Public Library of Science 2021-09-02 /pmc/articles/PMC8412259/ /pubmed/34473693 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009288 Text en © 2021 Bauer et al https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bauer, Simon
Contreras, Sebastian
Dehning, Jonas
Linden, Matthias
Iftekhar, Emil
Mohr, Sebastian B.
Olivera-Nappa, Alvaro
Priesemann, Viola
Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title_full Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title_fullStr Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title_full_unstemmed Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title_short Relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further COVID-19 waves
title_sort relaxing restrictions at the pace of vaccination increases freedom and guards against further covid-19 waves
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8412259/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34473693
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009288
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