COVID-19 epidemic in New York City: development of an age group-specific mathematical model to predict the outcome of various vaccination strategies

BACKGROUND: Since December 14, 2020, New York City (NYC) has started the first batch of COVID-19 vaccines. However, the shortage of vaccines is currently an inevitable problem. Therefore, optimizing the age-specific COVID-19 vaccination is an important issue that needs to be addressed as a priority. OBJECTIVE: Combined with the reported COVID-19 data in NYC, this study aimed to construct a mathematical model with five age groups to estimate the impact of age-specific vaccination on reducing the prevalence of COVID-19. METHODS: We proposed an age-structured mathematical model and estimated the unknown parameters based on the method of Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC). We also calibrated our model by using three different types of reported COVID-19 data in NYC. Moreover, we evaluated the reduced cumulative number of deaths and new infections with different vaccine allocation strategies. RESULTS: Compared with the current vaccination strategy in NYC, if we gradually increased the vaccination coverage rate for only one age groups from March 1, 2021 such that the vaccination coverage rate would reach to 40% by June 1, 2021, then as of June 1, 2021, the cumulative deaths in the 75–100 age group would be reduced the most, about 72 fewer deaths per increased 100,000 vaccinated individuals, and the cumulative new infections in the 0–17 age group would be reduced the most, about 21,591 fewer new infections per increased 100,000 vaccinated individuals. If we gradually increased the vaccination coverage rate for two age groups from March 1, 2021 such that the vaccination coverage rate would reach to 40% by June 1, 2021, then as of June 1, 2021, the cumulative deaths in the 65–100 age group would be reduced the most, about 36 fewer deaths per increased 100,000 vaccinated individuals, and the cumulative new infections in the 0–44 age group would be reduced the most, about 17,515 fewer new infections per increased 100,000 vaccinated individuals. In addition, if we had an additional 100,000 doses of vaccine for 0–17 and 75–100 age groups as of June 1, 2021, then the allocation of 80% to the 0–17 age group and 20% to the 75–100 age group would reduce the maximum numbers of new infections and deaths simultaneously in NYC. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 burden including deaths and new infections would decrease with increasing vaccination coverage rate. Priority vaccination to the elderly and adolescents would minimize both deaths and new infections. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12985-022-01771-9.