The importance of non-pharmaceutical interventions during the COVID-19 vaccine rollout

Abstract

The promise of efficacious vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is fulfilled and vaccination campaigns are starting worldwide. However, the fight against the pandemic is far from over. Here, we propose an age-structured compartmental model to study the interplay of disease transmission, vaccines rollout, and behavioural dynamics. We investigate, via in-silico simulations, individual and societal behavioural changes, possibly induced by the start of the vaccination campaigns, and manifested as a relaxation of non-pharmaceutical interventions. We calibrate the model using real epidemiological data for three different countries: Italy, France, and the United Kingdom. We explore different vaccination rollout speeds, prioritization strategies, and vaccine efficacy as well as multiple behavioural responses. Our findings suggest that early relaxation of safe behaviours can jeopardize the benefits brought by the vaccine in the short term: a fast vaccine distribution and policies aimed at keeping high compliance of individual safe behaviours are key to mitigate disease resurgence.