Thread by @BernieDogs4

"Our results suggest that policymakers & individuals should consider maintaining NPIs & transmission-reducing behaviours throughout *entire* vaccination period."

Results of what? Rates of SARS-CoV-2 transmission & vaccination impact fate of vax-resistant strains

Modeling study

This isn't so much about the vax we are using. It's about leadership it seems? (A few tweets⬇️)

"Specifically, a concern is whether a combination of vaccination and transmission rates can create positive selection pressure on the emergence & establishment of resistant strains"

To address this issue, we implemented a model to simulate the probability of emergence of a resistant strain as a function of vaccination rates and changes in the rate of virus transmission, resembling those caused by non-pharmaceutical interventions and behavioural changes

"Model suggests 3 intuitively obvious risk factors favouring the emergence /establishment of a vaccine-resistant strain: 

1. high probability of initial emergence of the resistant strain
2. high number of infected individuals
3. low rate of vaccination"

"But a counterintuitive result of the analysis is that:

The highest risk of resistant strain establishment occurs when a large fraction of the population has already been vaccinated but the transmission is not controlled."

"It seems likely that when a large fraction of the population is vaccinated, especially the high-risk fraction of the population (aged/underlying conditions) policy makers & individuals will be driven to return to prepandemic guidelines/behaviours conducive ⬆️ virus transmission"

However, the establishment of a resistant strain at that time may lead to serial rounds of resistant strain evolution with vaccine development playing catch up in the evolutionary arms race against the virus.

"One simple specific recommendation is to keep transmission low even when a large fraction of the population has been vaccinated by implementing acute non-pharmaceutical interventions (i.e. strict adherence to social distancing) for a reasonable period of time"

Whoops.

Additional factors that may make these measures even more effective are:

1. increased and widespread testing
2. rigorous contact tracing
3. high rate of viral sequencing of positive cases
4. travel restrictions

+ Global coordination! So it doesn't keep going round!

(0 for 5?)

It's all here for you to read so you can catch any mistakes or oversights or 🍒 picking I may have done!

nature.com/articles/s4159…

Right here.

I feel like this study is Annette and the US is Jack.

And again all of this so that we don't get vaccine resistant strains.

Everything we are not doing.

Movie: Andromeda Strain