Analysis of COVID-19 in India using vaccine epidemic model incorporating vaccine effectiveness and herd immunity

TL;DR

This paper develops and analyzes a COVID-19 epidemic model incorporating vaccination, vaccine efficacy, and waning immunity, emphasizing the role of booster shots and herd immunity in controlling the epidemic in India.

Contribution

It introduces a novel SEIRV model considering vaccine waning and analyzes COVID-19 dynamics specific to India, highlighting critical parameters for epidemic control.

Findings

Vaccination and booster doses are crucial for epidemic control.

Herd immunity depends on vaccination rate and vaccine efficacy.

Vaccine waning impacts long-term disease dynamics.

Abstract

COVID-19 will be a continuous threat to human population despite having a few vaccines at hand until we reach the endemic state through natural herd immunity and total immunization through universal vaccination. However, the vaccine acts as a practical tool for reducing the massive public health problem and the emerging economic consequences that the continuing COVID -19 epidemic is causing worldwide, while the vaccine efficacy wanes. In this work, we propose and analyze an epidemic model of Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Vaccinated (SEIRV) population taking into account the rate of vaccination and vaccine waning. The dynamics of the model has been investigated, and the condition for a disease-free endemic equilibrium state is obtained. Further, the analysis is extended to study the COVID-19 spread in India by considering the availability of vaccines and the related critical parameters such as vaccination rate, vaccine efficacy and waning of vaccine's impact on deciding the emerging fate of this epidemic. We have also discussed the conditions for herd immunity due to vaccinated individuals among the people. Our results highlight the importance of vaccines, the effectiveness of booster vaccination in protecting people from infection, and their importance in epidemic and pandemic modelling.