COVID-19 is a disease that disproportionately impacts the Hispanic population,due to the prevalence of certain risk factors and the high number of essential workers in this com-munity.In this work,we analyze the vacci...COVID-19 is a disease that disproportionately impacts the Hispanic population,due to the prevalence of certain risk factors and the high number of essential workers in this com-munity.In this work,we analyze the vaccination strategies that would minimize the COVID-19 health disparities in El Paso County,TX,in the context of the emergence of a new highly transmissible and immune-escaping SARS-CoV-2 variant.We stratify an age-structure stochastic SEIR model that tracks the evolution of immunity derived from in-fections and vaccination according to Hispanic vs non-Hispanic ethnicity and parameterize it to the demographic,health and immunization data of El Paso County,TX.After fitting the model,the results show that increasing vaccination with bivalent boosters by five-fold in anticipation of highly transmissible and immune escaping variants would decrease the cumulative hospital admissions and mortality from Mar 1,2023,to Dec 31,2023,by 62.72%and 61.41%,respectively.Further,our projections reveal that the disproportionate impact on the Hispanic community would be eliminated if approximately half of the doses that are given to the non-Hispanic group according to the equal distribution,would be re-allocated to the Hispanic population.Our findings can guide public health officials in US cities with large Hispanic communities and help them design vaccination strategies that minimize COVID-19 health disparities caused by emerging variants using specific vacci-nation strategies.展开更多
基金supported by the Counsil of State and Territorial Epidemiologists(grant no.NU38OT000297).
文摘COVID-19 is a disease that disproportionately impacts the Hispanic population,due to the prevalence of certain risk factors and the high number of essential workers in this com-munity.In this work,we analyze the vaccination strategies that would minimize the COVID-19 health disparities in El Paso County,TX,in the context of the emergence of a new highly transmissible and immune-escaping SARS-CoV-2 variant.We stratify an age-structure stochastic SEIR model that tracks the evolution of immunity derived from in-fections and vaccination according to Hispanic vs non-Hispanic ethnicity and parameterize it to the demographic,health and immunization data of El Paso County,TX.After fitting the model,the results show that increasing vaccination with bivalent boosters by five-fold in anticipation of highly transmissible and immune escaping variants would decrease the cumulative hospital admissions and mortality from Mar 1,2023,to Dec 31,2023,by 62.72%and 61.41%,respectively.Further,our projections reveal that the disproportionate impact on the Hispanic community would be eliminated if approximately half of the doses that are given to the non-Hispanic group according to the equal distribution,would be re-allocated to the Hispanic population.Our findings can guide public health officials in US cities with large Hispanic communities and help them design vaccination strategies that minimize COVID-19 health disparities caused by emerging variants using specific vacci-nation strategies.
