Abstract
Health officials warn that SARS-CoV-2 vaccines must be uniformly distributed within and among countries if we are to quell the ongoing pandemic. Yet there has been little critical assessment of the underlying reasons for this warning. Here, we explicitly show why vaccine equity is necessary. Perhaps counter-intuitively, we find that vaccine escape mutants are less likely to come from highly vaccinated regions where there is strong selection pressure favoring vaccine escape and more likely to come from neighboring unvaccinated regions where there is no selection favoring escape. Unvaccinated geographic regions thus provide evolutionary reservoirs from which new strains can arise and cause new epidemics within neighboring vaccinated regions and beyond. Our findings have timely implications for vaccine rollout strategies and public health policy. Funding Statement: USA/Brazil Fulbright scholar program (PJG, AC) CONACyT grants DGAPA-PAPIIT UNAM IV100220 and DGAPA-PAPIIT IN115720 UNAM (JXVH, FS) : Declaration of Interests: Authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Highlights
In the face of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, researchers and companies around the world have vacillated between competition and cooperation in the race for a vaccine that could restore some societal and economic normalcy
We assume there is a limited supply of vaccine, and we study how asymmetric vs symmetric distribution to the two patches influences the probability of vaccine escape (Fig 1b)
We model the accumulation of escape mutations from wildtype and focus on the timing of the first infection event in which a new host is infected with an escape mutant, which we will call an “escape-infection” event
Summary
In the face of the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, researchers and companies around the world have vacillated between competition and cooperation in the race for a vaccine that could restore some societal and economic normalcy. We assume there is a limited supply of vaccine, and we study how asymmetric vs symmetric distribution to the two patches influences the probability of vaccine escape (Fig 1b).
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
