Related papers: The fallacy of herd immunity
Inference is the process of using facts we know to learn about facts we do not know. A theory of inference gives assumptions necessary to get from the former to the latter, along with a definition for and summary of the resulting…
This work introduces a novel epidemiological model that simultaneously considers multiple viral strains, reinfections due to waning immunity response over time and an optimal control formulation. This enables us to derive optimal mitigation…
Transmission rates in epidemic outbreaks may vary over time depending on the societal response. Non-pharmacological mitigation strategies such as social distancing and the adoption of protective equipment aim precisely at reducing…
The hazard ratio is one of the most commonly reported measures of treatment effect in randomised trials, yet the source of much misinterpretation. This point was made clear by (Hernan, 2010) in commentary, which emphasised that the hazard…
It is of vital importance to understand and track the dynamics of rapidly unfolding epidemics. The health and economic consequences of the current COVID-19 pandemic provide a poignant case. Here we point out that since they are based on…
We consider a model for an epidemic in a population that occupies geographically distinct locations. The disease is spread within subpopulations by contacts between infective and susceptible individuals, and is spread between subpopulations…
This paper reports the findings of a 606-participant study where we analyzed the perception and engagement effects of COVID-19 vaccine rumours on Twitter pertaining to (a) vaccine efficacy; and (b) mass immunization efforts in the United…
What is the long term dynamics of the Covid-19 pandemic? How will it end? Here we constructed an infectious disease model with testing and analyzed the existence and stability of its endemic states. For a large parameter set, including…
We introduce a novel compartmental model accounting for the effects of vaccine efficacy, deployment rates and timing of initiation of deployment. We simulate different scenarios and initial conditions, and we find that higher abundancy and…
Uncertainty can be classified as either aleatoric (intrinsic randomness) or epistemic (imperfect knowledge of parameters). The majority of frameworks assessing infectious disease risk consider only epistemic uncertainty. We only ever…
Mortality is an instrument of natural selection. Evolutionary motivated theories imply its irreversibility and life history dependence. This is inconsistent with mortality data for protected populations. Accurate analysis yields mortality…
In this paper, we conduct mathematical and numerical analyses to address the following crucial questions for COVID-19: (Q1) Is it possible to contain COVID-19? (Q2) When will be the peak and the end of the epidemic? (Q3) How do the…
Countries highly exposed to incoming traffic from China were expected to be at the highest risk of COVID-19 spread. However, COVID-19 case numbers (infection levels) are negatively correlated with incoming traffic-level. Moreover, infection…
The COVID-19 pandemic has hit different parts of the world differently: some regions are still in the rise of the first wave, other regions are now facing a decline after a first wave, and yet other regions have started to see a second…
Protecting interventions of many types (both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical) can be deployed against the spreading of a communicable disease, as the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically shown. Here we investigate in detail…
We investigate the effects of risk perception in a simple model of epidemic spreading. We assume that the perception of the risk of being infected depends on the fraction of neighbors that are ill. The effect of this factor is to decrease…
We consider a vaccination game that results with the introduction of premature and possibly scarce vaccines introduced in a desperate bid to combat the otherwise ravaging deadly pandemic. The response of unsure agents amid many…
We investigate the spread of diseases, computer viruses or information on complex networks and also immunization strategies to prevent or control the spread. When an entire population cannot be immunized and the effect of immunization is…
We consider the problem of deciding how best to target and prioritize existing vaccines that may offer protection against new variants of an infectious disease. Sequential experiments are a promising approach; however, challenges due to…
We introduce a simple multiplicative model to describe the temporal behavior and the ultimate outcome of an epidemic. Our model accounts, in a minimalist way, for the competing influences of imposing public-health restrictions when the…