Key info
Date:
24 March 2021
Authors:
Daniela Olivera Mesa, Alexandra B Hogan, Oliver J Watson, Giovanni D Charles, Katharina Hauck, Azra C Ghani, Peter Winskill1
1Correspondence:
p.winskill@imperial.ac.uk
WHO Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease Modelling, MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis, Jameel Institute (J-IDEA), Imperial College London.
Now published in Nature; 10-02-2022, doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/s43856-022-00075-x
Summary
Vaccine hesitancy – a delay in acceptance or refusal of vaccines despite availability – has the potential to threaten the successful roll-out of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines globally. Here, we evaluate the potential impact of vaccine hesitancy on the control of the pandemic and the relaxation of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) by combining an epidemiological model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission with data on vaccine hesitancy from population surveys. Our findings suggest that the mortality over a 2-year period could be up to 8 times higher in countries with high vaccine hesitancy compared to an ideal vaccination uptake if NPIs are relaxed. Alternatively, high vaccine hesitancy could prolong the need for NPIs to remain in place. Addressing vaccine hesitancy with behavioural interventions is therefore an important priority in the control of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Translations
- 中文 - Mandarin
- 日本語 - Japanese
- Español - Spanish
- Français - French
- Italiano - Italian
- Arabic - العربية
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