Related papers: The fallacy of herd immunity
Infectious pathogens often propagate by superspreading, which focusses onward transmission on disproportionately few infected individuals. At the same time, infector-infectee pairs tend to have more similar transmission potentials than…
We demonstrate that the epidemic renormalisation group approach to pandemics provides an effective and simple way to investigate the dynamics of disease transmission and spreading across different regions of the world. The framework also…
During infectious disease epidemics, pathogen transmission occurs in host populations made up of interacting subpopulations. Using stochastic simulation and analytical approximations, we examine how outbreak sizes in networked populations…
To combat the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, the world has vaccination, plasma therapy, herd immunity, and epidemiological interventions as few possible options. The COVID-19 vaccine development is underway and it may take a…
Social distancing reduces infectious disease transmission by limiting contact frequency and proximity within a community. However, compliance varies due to its impact on daily life. This paper explores the effects of compliance on social…
Epidemic models describe the evolution of a communicable disease over time. These models are often modified to include the effects of interventions (control measures) such as vaccination, social distancing, school closings etc. Many such…
In this chapter we want to provide a review of the main results obtained in the modeling of epidemic spreading in scale-free networks. In particular, we want to show the different epidemiological framework originated by the lack of any…
We examine here the effects of recurrent vaccination and waning immunity on the establishment of an endemic equilibrium in a population. An individual-based model that incorporates memory effects for transmission rate during infection and…
Pandemic control measures like lock-down, restrictions on restaurants and gatherings, social-distancing have shown to be effective in curtailing the spread of COVID-19. However, their sustained enforcement has negative economic effects. To…
The rapid outbreak of bird flu challenges the outcome of effective vaccine for the upcoming years. The recent research established different norms to eliminate flu pandemics. This can be made possible with skilled experimental analyses and…
The response of the immune system to different vaccination patterns is studied with a simple model. It is argued that the history and characteristics of the pattern defines very different secondary immune responses in the case of infection.…
Despite high vaccine coverage, pertussis has re-emerged as a public health concern in many countries. One hypothesis posed for re-emergence is the waning of immunity. In some disease systems, the process of waning immunity can be…
Polarization of opinions about vaccination can have a negative impact on pandemic control. In this work we quantify this negative impact for the transmission of COVID-19, using an agent based simulation in an heterogeneous population with…
We consider the interplay of vaccination and migration rates on disease persistence in epidemiological systems. We show that short-term and long-term migration can inhibit disease persistence. As a result, we show how migration changes how…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, case isolation emerged as a key non-pharmaceutical intervention in pandemic response. Its effectiveness hinges on the timing of isolation, which is often dictated by the onset of contagiousness. While…
In constant parameter compartmental models an early onset of herd immunity is at odds with estimates of R values from early stage growth. This paper utilizes a result from the theory of interest rate modeling, namely a bond pricing formula…
Knowing whether vaccine protection wanes over time is important for health policy and drug development. However, quantifying waning effects is difficult. A simple contrast of vaccine efficacy at two different times compares different…
Pandemic response is a complex affair. Most governments employ a set of quasi-standard measures to fight COVID-19 including wearing masks, social distancing, virus testing and contact tracing. We argue that some non-trivial factors behind…
The vanishing epidemic threshold for viruses spreading on scale-free networks indicate that traditional methods, aiming to decrease a virus' spreading rate cannot succeed in eradicating an epidemic. We demonstrate that policies that…
Considering the global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), around the world several vaccines are being developed. Till now, these vaccines are the most effective way to reduce the high burden on the global health…