Modelling the COVID-19 epidemic and the vaccination campaign in Italy by the SUIHTER model

TL;DR

This paper extends the SUIHTER epidemiological model to include vaccination effects and new COVID-19 variants, providing improved forecasts and scenario analyses for Italy's pandemic evolution.

Contribution

The paper introduces an enhanced SUIHTER model that incorporates vaccination and variant features, improving COVID-19 epidemic modeling accuracy in Italy.

Findings

Model accurately forecasts COVID-19 trends in Italy.

Inclusion of variants and vaccination improves prediction reliability.

Scenario analyses inform policy decisions.

Abstract

Several epidemiological models have been proposed to study the evolution of COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we propose an extension of the SUIHTER model, first introduced in [Parolini et al, Proc R. Soc. A., 2021] to analyse the COVID-19 spreading in Italy, which accounts for the vaccination campaign and the presence of new variants when they become dominant. In particular, the specific features of the variants (e.g. their increased transmission rate) and vaccines (e.g. their efficacy to prevent transmission, hospitalization and death) are modeled, based on clinical evidence. The new model is validated comparing its near-future forecast capabilities with other epidemiological models and exploring different scenario analyses.