A note on variable susceptibility, the herd-immunity threshold and modeling of infectious diseases.

ABSTRACT: The unfolding of the COVID-19 pandemic has been very difficult to predict using mathematical models for infectious diseases. While it has been demonstrated that variations in susceptibility have a damping effect on key quantities such as the incidence peak, the herd-immunity threshold and the final size of the pandemic, this complex phenomenon is almost impossible to measure or quantify, and it remains unclear how to incorporate it for modeling and prediction. In this work we show that, from a modeling perspective, variability in susceptibility on an individual level is equivalent with a fraction θ of the population having an "artificial" sterilizing immunity. We also derive novel formulas for the herd-immunity threshold and the final size of the pandemic, and show that these values are su

SUBMITTER: Carlsson M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9931097 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature