Understanding the immunological landscape of England during SARS-CoV2 Omicron variant wave

Abstract

Understanding the scale of the threat posed by SARS-CoV2 B.1.1.529, or Omicron , variant formed a key problem in public health in the early part of 2022. Early evidence indicated that the variant was more transmissible and less severe than previous variants. As the virus was expected to spread quickly through the population of England, it was important that some understanding of the immunological landscape of the country was developed. This paper attempts to estimate the number of people with good immunity to the Omicron variant, defined as either recent infection with two doses of vaccine, or two doses of vaccine with a recent booster dose. To achieve this, we use a process of iterative proportional fitting to estimate the cell values of a contingency table, using national immunisation records and real-time model infection estimates as marginal values. Our results indicate that, despite the increased risk of immune evasion with the Omicron variant, a high proportion of England’s population had good immunity to the virus, particularly in older age groups. However, low rates of immunity in younger populations may allow endemic infection to persist for some time.

Estimating the risk of hospitalisation and death in England’s remaining unvaccinated population

“…The size of the remaining unvaccinated population in England is estimated using the NIMS dataset, along with mid-2021 population Estimates from Office for National Statistics [5]. Estimates from the UKHSA-Cambridge COVID-19 infection nowcasting model are used to estimate the number of unvaccinated individuals in each group who have not had an infection in the last three months, using a process of Iterative Proportional Fitting (IPF) [6].…”