UK – A rambling mind

Modelling of vaccine strategies

Comparative vaccination charts for the UK to 800 days. Continuation of current NPIs on the left; and an graduated vaccine intervention on the right from January 1st 2021

In my most recent post on November 18th, about updating my Coronavirus model to handle the impact of vaccines, I gave some examples of how case numbers, and more specifically death rates might be improved for the UK through a vaccination programme. Now that there seem to be several vaccines imminent, with efficacies ranging from 70% (Astra-Zeneca/Oxford) through 90% (A-Z/O via a different inoculation regime, and Pfizer), to 95% (Moderna) and several others in the mix, I explore some sensitivities in more detail, and also apply the model to the USA.

Make America well again

Model charts for the USA. Continuation of current policy until a postulated Biden intervention on February 20th 2021, on the left; and an early November 8th intervention on the right

I look at the impact of a postulated change in the timing of further measures to control the Covid-19 epidemic in the USA, against a current background of rapidly increasing daily case numbers and deaths. I also show an updated projection for the UK, both compared with Worldometers forecasts

Where’s the exit?

Imperial College and Harvard forecasts and illustrations of cyclical pandemic behaviour

My title for this post is drawn from a slide I have shown before, from the 17th April Cambridge Conversation webinar, which I reported in my April 17th blog post, and also in my April 22nd blog post on model refinement, illustrating the cyclical behavior of the Covid-19 epidemic in the absence of pharmaceutical interventions, with control of cases and deaths achieved, only to some extent, by Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs).