Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States of America.
Department of Data Science, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2021 Nov 24;16(11):e0258997. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0258997. eCollection 2021.
The development and deployment of several SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a little over a year is an unprecedented achievement of modern medicine. The high levels of efficacy against transmission for some of these vaccines makes it feasible to use them to suppress SARS-CoV-2 altogether in regions with high vaccine acceptance. However, viral variants with reduced susceptibility to vaccinal and natural immunity threaten the utility of vaccines, particularly in scenarios where a return to pre-pandemic conditions occurs before the suppression of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. In this work we model the situation in the United States in May-June 2021, to demonstrate how pre-existing variants of SARS-CoV-2 may cause a rebound wave of COVID-19 in a matter of months under a certain set of conditions. A high burden of morbidity (and likely mortality) remains possible, even if the vaccines are partially effective against new variants and widely accepted. Our modeling suggests that variants that are already present within the population may be capable of quickly defeating the vaccines as a public health intervention, a serious potential limitation for strategies that emphasize rapid reopening before achieving control of SARS-CoV-2.
在短短一年多的时间里，几种 SARS-CoV-2 疫苗的开发和部署是现代医学的一项空前成就。其中一些疫苗对传播的高度有效性使得在疫苗接受程度高的地区，有可能利用它们来完全抑制 SARS-CoV-2 的传播。然而，对疫苗和自然免疫的敏感性降低的病毒变体威胁着疫苗的效用，特别是在 SARS-CoV-2 传播得到抑制之前，就恢复到大流行前的情况的情况下。在这项工作中，我们模拟了 2021 年 5 月至 6 月美国的情况，以展示在某些条件下，预先存在的 SARS-CoV-2 变体如何在数月内引发 COVID-19 的反弹波。即使疫苗对新变体有一定程度的有效性，且被广泛接受，发病率（可能还有死亡率）仍有可能居高不下。我们的模型表明，已经存在于人群中的变体可能有能力迅速击败疫苗作为一种公共卫生干预措施，这是在实现 SARS-CoV-2 控制之前强调快速重新开放的策略的一个严重潜在限制。
