Towards achieving vaccine-derived herd immunity against COVID-19 in the U.S.
When
The novel coronavirus that emerged in December of 2019 (COVID-19), which started as an outbreak of pneumonia of unknown cause in the city of Wuhan, has become the most important public health challenge humans have faced since the 1918 influenza pandemic. Within weeks of its emergence, COVID-19 spread to every part of the world, accounting for over 103 million confirmed cases and 2.2 million deaths (as of February 1, 2021), in addition to incurring severe economic burden, social disruptions and other human stresses, globally. In this talk, I will discuss our work on the mathematical modeling and analysis of the spread and control of the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S., with emphasis on the assessment of the population-level impact of the three currently-available anti-COVID vaccines (namely, the Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines). Specifically, we will explore conditions for the elimination of the pandemic in the U.S. using the FDA-approved vaccines (vis a vis achieving vaccine-derived herd immunity) and/or their combination with other nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as face masks usage and social-distancing.
Place: Zoom: https://asu.zoom.us/j/85049043960