Individual variation in susceptibility or exposure to SARS-CoV-2 lowers the herd immunity threshold.

ABSTRACT: Individual variation in susceptibility and exposure is subject to selection by natural infection, accelerating the acquisition of immunity, and reducing herd immunity thresholds and epidemic final sizes. This is a manifestation of a wider population phenomenon known as "frailty variation". Despite theoretical understanding, public health policies continue to be guided by mathematical models that leave out considerable variation and as a result inflate projected disease burdens and overestimate the impact of interventions. Here we focus on trajectories of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic in England and Scotland until November 2021. We fit models to series of daily deaths and infer relevant epidemiological parameters, including coefficients of variation and effects of non-pharmace

SUBMITTER: Gomes MGM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8855661 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature