Originally published on January 11, 2021 3:36 pm
Only a vaccine will save America from the COVID -19 pandemic. At least that s the opinion of nearly all public health officials.
Obviously, vaccine manufacturers are critical to any vaccine campaign. But there s another group that plays a less obvious but still crucial role in making sure vaccines do what they re intended: mathematicians.
Even if the Biden administration releases all available doses of the two authorized COVID-19 vaccines, for a while at least, supplies will remain limited. How best to use that limited supply is a question mathematicians can help answer. Mathematical models are very, very useful to guide policy, says Laura Matrajt, a builder of mathematical models at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. They can help with decisions about who gets the vaccine first when supplies are limited.
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Professor Tulio de Oliveira at work in his lab at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa, on January 8, 2021. Photo / Joao Silva, The New York Times
Professor Tulio de Oliveira at work in his lab at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine in Durban, South Africa, on January 8, 2021. Photo / Joao Silva, The New York Times
New York Times
By: Matt Apuzzo, Selam Gebrekidan and Apoorva Mandavilli
Doctors and nurses at a South African hospital group noticed an odd spike in the number of Covid-19 patients in their wards in late October.