Vaccines alone are no silver bullets: A modeling study on the impact of efficient contact tracing on COVID-19 infection and transmission in Malaysia
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
1-1-2023
Abstract
Background The computer simulation presented in this study aimed to investigate the effect of contact tracing on coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission and infection in the context of rising vaccination rates. Methods This study proposed a deterministic, compartmental model with contact tracing and vaccination components. We defined contact tracing effectiveness as the proportion of contacts of a positive case that was successfully traced and the vaccination rate as the proportion of daily doses administered per population in Malaysia. Sensitivity analyses on the untraced and infectious populations were conducted. Results At a vaccination rate of 1.4%, contact tracing with an effectiveness of 70% could delay the peak of untraced asymptomatic cases by 17 d and reduce it by 70% compared with 30% contact tracing effectiveness. A similar trend was observed for symptomatic cases when a similar experiment setting was used. We also performed sensitivity analyses by using different combinations of contact tracing effectiveness and vaccination rates. In all scenarios, the effect of contact tracing on COVID-19 incidence persisted for both asymptomatic and symptomatic cases. Conclusions While vaccines are progressively rolled out, efficient contact tracing must be rapidly implemented concurrently to reach, find, test, isolate and support the affected populations to bring COVID-19 under control.
Keywords
Contact tracing, COVID-19, Transmission, Vaccination
Divisions
fac_med
Funders
None
Publication Title
International Health
Volume
15
Issue
1
Publisher
Oxford University Press
Publisher Location
GREAT CLARENDON ST, OXFORD OX2 6DP, ENGLAND