Special Issue on the Impact of Vaccination Scale and Pathogenic Mutations on Disease Transmission

It is more than a year since the first cases of COVID-19 were reported. In that time, the virus has caused high mortality and tremendous interruptions to socio-economic activity. There is finally light at the end of the tunnel due to unprecedented progress in SARS-CoV-2 vaccine research and development. Large-scale vaccination programmes have been launched; most in developed countries, some in middle-income countries and a few in developing countries. However, the current approved vaccines can only provide 50-95% protection in preventing symptomatic COVID-19 diseases. This figure is much lower when it comes to reducing SARS-CoV-2 infection.  It is of great interest to model and evaluate the impact of different COVID-19 vaccines and vaccination programmes (by country, region, global level and allocation) on both the disease burden and the virus pandemic. This information is urgently needed by health authorities at national and international levels for coordinated, global COVID-19 control efforts.

At the same time, the emergence of new coronavirus strains may affect the current vaccine efficacy (if not now, possibly in the future). It is necessary to evaluate these changes and their impacts on the current non-pharmaceutical interventions and vaccines.

This special issue welcomes all high-quality mathematical modelling papers on the role of vaccines and vaccination strategies in the pandemic at national and global levels. It also welcomes modelling papers addressing the influence of new mutations of the predominant strain.

Topics Covered:

Contributions should be within the domain of Infectious Disease Modelling. Topics covered include, but are not limited to:

• Effectiveness of a vaccination programme
• Vaccination in regions with different socio-economic characteristics
• Vaccination game theory
• Immunisation schedules and vaccine allocation
• Impact of pathogenic mutations

Important Deadlines:

• Submission deadline: 31 December 2021

Submission Instructions:

Please read the Guide for Authors when preparing your manuscript. All articles should be submitted online; please select the special issue title Vaccination and Mutations when submitting.

Guest Editors:

• Daihai He, Associate Prof. and PhD, Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. Email: daihai.he@polyu.edu.hk
• Yijun Lou, Associate Prof. and PhD, Department of Applied Mathematics, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China. Email: yijun.lou@polyu.edu.hk