Waning Immunity and the Second Wave: Some Projections for SARS-CoV-2
22 juni, 2020
Network member Flavio Toxvaerd with coauthors consider, in a new working paper, the optimal social distancing policy in an SEIRS model of the COVID-19 epidemic in which immunity wanes over time.
In this paper, the authors calibrate the model to the US and consider the effects of different waning periods for the dynamics of the disease and the path of optimal control. The analysis shows that the possibility of waning immunity qualitatively changes the trajectory of social distancing even at early states of the epidemic and that the return to susceptibility creates the potential for a second wave of infection, which policy dampens but does not eradicate.
Link to the paper here.
Flavio Toxvaerd
Cambridge University
Posted by Maria Perrotta Berlin