COVID

Brief description of model:

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The LSHTM-KEMRI team uses CovidM to assess the impact of COVID-19 vaccines. CovidM is a stage-specific dynamic transmission model designed to incorporate complex immune dynamics (e.g. waning of protection to different degrees), to evaluate different vaccine characteristics (e.g. preventing infection, reducing severity), and to generate a range of impact metrics (e.g. cases, deaths, loss of disability-adjusted life years). The model is fitted to country-level reported COVID-19 deaths by mid-2022, where possible, using maximum likelihood estimation and differential evolution optimisation. Differences between countries are driven by (1) demographics (both current and future projections), (2) age-specific contact patterns, (3) local natural history of COVID-19 epidemics (including the influences of public health and social measures), and (4) impact parameters (e.g. life expectancy). The sources of uncertainty around the model results are the model fitting process, epidemic parameters (e.g. rate of immunity waning, severity of future emerging strains), and vaccine efficacy estimates.