Infectious Disease

A small increase in COVID-19 vaccine coverage could prevent millions of cases, the model shows

Source / information

Published by:

Disclosure:
Lee does not report any relevant financial information. Please refer to the study for all relevant financial information from the other authors.

ADD SUBJECT TO EMAIL ALERTS

Receive an email when new articles are published on

Please enter your email address to receive an email when new articles are published on . “data-action =” subscribe “> subscribe

We could not process your request. Please try again later. If this problem persists, please contact [email protected].

Back to Healio

A COVID-19 vaccination model showed that 50% coverage could prevent nearly 6 million additional cases in the United States by the summer, compared to reaching that milestone in the fall, researchers reported.

“Previous work, including ours, has shown that 70% to 80% or more of the population must be vaccinated or immune to SARS-CoV-2 in order to slow the spread of the virus to the point where precautions such as social distancing are no longer necessary are ” Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA, Professor of Health Policy Management and Executive Director of Public Health Informatics, Computational and Operation Research at the City University of New York Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, said Healio.

Covid vaccination

Even small increases in vaccination rates could prevent millions of COVID-19 cases. Photo credit: Adobe Stock

“Knowing the savings, including the cost savings, from increasing vaccination coverage by various amounts can help policy makers and other decision-makers know how much should be invested in efforts to get more people vaccinated, e.g. vaccination centers, hiring more Vaccination staff, etc., ”said Lee.

Lee and colleagues developed a computational model to determine the impact of increased COVID-19 vaccination coverage and speed up the time to achieve coverage. Their study was published in early May.

The study showed that reaching a certain vaccination coverage rate in 270 days with a vaccine that is 70% effective can prevent an average of 876,800 cases from any 1% increase in vaccination rate, although Lee and colleagues said that result depends on the number of Individuals can vary from being vaccinated.

Lee found that even small increases in vaccination coverage can result in significant savings. For example, they found that every 1% increase between 40% and 50% of coverage gains 1.5 million cases, 56,240 hospital admissions, 6,660 deaths, 77,590 Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs), $ 602.8 million in direct medical Cost and $ 1.3 can save billions in lost productivity.

Based on this model, the researchers said that speeding up this 270-day model to 180 days – 50% coverage by summer instead of fall – would add an additional 5.8 million cases, 215,790 hospital admissions, 26,370 deaths, 206,520 QALYs, 3 , Could save $ 5 billion in direct medical costs and $ 4.3 billion in lost productivity.

According to the CDC, 42.1% of the US population is fully vaccinated as of June 7th.

“Programs and efforts to get more people vaccinated will result in significant savings. Even relatively small increases in vaccination coverage will result in significant savings, ”said Lee. “Timing is important. The sooner people can be vaccinated, the better, even if the vaccine may become less effective, as with the future variant.”

ADD SUBJECT TO EMAIL ALERTS

Receive an email when new articles are published on

Please enter your email address to receive an email when new articles are published on . “data-action =” subscribe “> subscribe

We could not process your request. Please try again later. If this problem persists, please contact [email protected].

Back to Healio

COVID-19 Resource Center

COVID-19 Resource Center

Related Articles