COVID-19 Incidence Proportion as a Function of Regional Testing Strategy, Vaccination Coverage, and Vaccine Type

Abstract

Introduction: The COVID-19 pandemic has become a serious challenge for humanity almost everywhere globally. Despite active vaccination around the world, the incidence proportion in different countries varies significantly as of May 2022. The reason may be a combination of demographic, immunological, and epidemiological factors. The purpose of this study was to analyze possible relationships between COVID-19 incidence proportion in the population and the types of SARS-CoV-2 vaccines used in different countries globally, taking into account demographic and epidemiological factors. Materials and methods: An initial database was created of demographic and immunoepidemiological information about the COVID-19 situation in 104 countries collected from published official sources and repository data. The baseline included, for each country, population size and density; SARS-CoV-2 testing coverage; vaccination coverage; incidence proportion; and a list of vaccines that were used, including their relative share among all vaccinations. Subsequently, the initial data set was stratified by population and vaccination coverage. The final data set was subjected to statistical processing both in general and taking into account population testing coverage. Results: After formation of the final data set (including 53 countries), it turned out that reported COVID-19 case numbers correlated most strongly with testing coverage and the proportions of vaccine types used, specifically, mRNA (V1); vector (V2); peptide/protein (V3); and whole-virion/inactivated (V4). Due to the fact that an inverse correlation was found between ‘reported COVID-19 case numbers’ with V2, V3, and V4, these three vaccine types were also combined into one analytic group, ‘non-mRNA group’ vaccines (Vnmg). When the relationship between vaccine type and incidence proportion was examined, minimum incidence proportion was noted at V1:Vnmg ratios (%:%) from 0:100 to 30:70. Maximum incidence proportion was seen with V1:Vnmg from 80:20 to 100:0. On the other hand, we have shown that the number of reported COVID-19 cases in different countries largely depends on testing coverage. To offset this factor, countries with low and extremely high levels of testing were excluded from the data set; it was then confirmed that the largest number of reported COVID-19 cases occurred in countries with a dominance of V1 vaccines. The fewest reported cases were seen in countries with a dominance of Vnmg vaccines. Conclusion: In this paper, we have shown for the first time that the level of reported COVID-19 incidence proportion depends not only on SARS-CoV-2 testing and vaccination coverage, which is quite logical, but probably also on the vaccine types used. With the same vaccination level and testing coverage, those countries that predominantly use vector and whole-virion vaccines feature incidence proportion that is significantly lower than countries that predominantly use mRNA vaccines.