Optimal vaccine roll-out strategies including social distancing for pandemics
Konstantinos Spiliotis,
Constantinos Chr. Koutsoumaris,
Andreas I. Reppas,
Lito A. Papaxenopoulou,
Jens Starke,
Haralampos Hatzikirou
Affiliations
Konstantinos Spiliotis
Institute of Mathematics, University of Rostock, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Constantinos Chr. Koutsoumaris
Department of Research, Development and Innovation Statistics, National Documentation Centre, 48 Vas. Konstantinou St, Athens 11635, Greece
Andreas I. Reppas
Universität Berlin and Humboldt- Universität zu Berlin, Charitéplatz 1, 10117 Berlin, Germany
Lito A. Papaxenopoulou
Department of Systems Immunology and Braunschweig Integrated Centre of Systems Biology, Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Rebenring 56, 38106 Braunschweig, Germany
Jens Starke
Institute of Mathematics, University of Rostock, 18057 Rostock, Germany
Haralampos Hatzikirou
Centre for Information Services and High Performance Computing, Technische Universität Dresden, Nöthnitzer Straße 46, 01062 Dresden, Germany; Mathematics Department, Khalifa University of Science and Technology, P.O. Box 127788, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates; Corresponding author
Summary: Non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs), principally social distancing, in combination with effective vaccines, aspire to develop a protective immunity shield against pandemics and particularly against the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, an agent-based network model with small-world topology is employed to find optimal policies against pandemics, including social distancing and vaccination strategies. The agents’ states are characterized by a variation of the SEIR model (susceptible, exposed, infected, recovered). To explore optimal policies, an equation-free method is proposed to solve the inverse problem of calibrating an agent’s infection rate with respect to the vaccination efficacy. The results show that prioritizing the first vaccine dose in combination with mild social restrictions, is sufficient to control the pandemic, with respect to the number of deaths. Moreover, for the same mild number of social contacts, we find an optimal vaccination ratio of 0.85 between older people of ages >65 compared to younger ones.
