Prevention of cyclical resurgences of COVID-19-like pandemics in the long term: What are the trade-offs?

Abstract

Vaccines have facilitated the substantial reduction and containment of COVID-19 transmission in many countries by early 2023. However, the long-term interconnection between vaccines, traits of the pathogen, vaccination strategies, and cases averted/trade-offs of health outcomes is not well understood. Utilizing a compartment-calibrated model, I estimated the aversion/trade-offs effect on six major disease burdens (i.e., total/symptomatic/asymptomatic/hospitalized/ICU/death cases averted) over time conditional on a variety level of scenarios. The findings implied that low-risk immunity profiles of booster doses increased the peak cases averted versus medium- and high-risk counterparts. The effect was most salient for the former paired with enhancing the rollout rate of doses, followed by the medium- and then high-risk scenarios. Positive and temporarily durable aversion effects for the low-risk, in contrast, negative trade-offs and decreasing aversion effects for the suboptimal scenarios were observed. While there are heterogeneities in vaccines, public strategies, social efforts, and other considerations, this work can provide an evidence-based rationale for the long-term trade-off analysis of vaccination.