Am J Prev Med . Vaccine Efficacy Needed for a COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine to Prevent or Stop an Epidemic as the Sole Intervention

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Am J Prev Med


. 2020 Jul 15;S0749-3797(20)30284-1.
doi: 10.1016/j.amepre.2020.06.011. Online ahead of print.
Vaccine Efficacy Needed for a COVID-19 Coronavirus Vaccine to Prevent or Stop an Epidemic as the Sole Intervention


Sarah M Bartsch ¹ , Kelly J O'Shea ¹ , Marie C Ferguson ¹ , Maria Elena Bottazzi ² , Patrick T Wedlock ¹ , Ulrich Strych ² , James A McKinnell ³ , Sheryl S Siegmund ¹ , Sarah N Cox ¹ , Peter J Hotez ² , Bruce Y Lee ⁴



Affiliations

• PMID: 32778354
• DOI: 10.1016/j.amepre.2020.06.011

Abstract

Introduction: Given the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and much of the U.S. implementing social distancing owing to the lack of alternatives, there has been a push to develop a vaccine to eliminate the need for social distancing.
Methods: In 2020, the team developed a computational model of the U.S. simulating the spread of COVID-19 coronavirus and vaccination.
Results: Simulation experiments revealed that to prevent an epidemic (reduce the peak by >99%), the vaccine efficacy has to be at least 60% when vaccination coverage is 100% (reproduction number=2.5-3.5). This vaccine efficacy threshold rises to 70% when coverage drops to 75% and up to 80% when coverage drops to 60% when reproduction number is 2.5, rising to 80% when coverage drops to 75% when the reproduction number is 3.5. To extinguish an ongoing epidemic, the vaccine efficacy has to be at least 60% when coverage is 100% and at least 80% when coverage drops to 75% to reduce the peak by 85%-86%, 61%-62%, and 32% when vaccination occurs after 5%, 15%, and 30% of the population, respectively, have already been exposed to COVID-19 coronavirus. A vaccine with an efficacy between 60% and 80% could still obviate the need for other measures under certain circumstances such as much higher, and in some cases, potentially unachievable, vaccination coverages.
Conclusions: This study found that the vaccine has to have an efficacy of at least 70% to prevent an epidemic and of at least 80% to largely extinguish an epidemic without any other measures (e.g., social distancing).