Modelling the interplay of SARS-CoV-2 variants in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Most COVID-19 vaccines have proved to be effective to combat the pandemic and to prevent severe disease but their distribution proceeds in a context of global vaccine shortage Their uneven distribution favors the appearance of new variants of concern, as the highly transmissible Delta variant, affecting especially non-vaccinated people. We consider that devising reliable models to analyse the spread of the different variants is crucial. These models should include the effects of vaccination as well as non-pharmaceutical measures used to contain the pandemic by modifying social behaviour. In this work, we present a stochastic geographical model that fulfills these requirements. It consists of an extended compartmental model that includes various strains and vaccination strategies, allowing to study the emergence and dynamics of the new COVID-19 variants. The models conveniently separates the parameters related to the disease from the ones related to social behavior and mobility restrictions. The geographical spread of the virus is modeled taking into account the actual population distribution in any given country of interest. Here we choose the UK as model system, taking advantage of the reliable available data, in order to fit the recurrence of the currently prevalent variants. Our computer simulations allow to describe some global features observed in the daily number of cases, as the appearance of periodic waves and the features that determine the prevalence of certain variants. They also provide useful predictions aiming to help planning future vaccination boosters. We stress that the model could be applied to any other country of interest.

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