A SEIRD+V Model for the Effect of Vaccination and Social Distancing on SARS-CoV-2 Infection and Mortality

We present a deterministic, calibrated Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered-Dead + Vaccinated (SEIRD+V) model that simulates the spread and containment of COVID-19. We use the model to compare the effectiveness of vaccination vs. social distancing on death prevention and total and peak infection reduction. We find that vaccination drastically reduces total deaths from COVID-19, as well as total and peak infections with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). We find that social distancing plays a role in reducing total COVID-19 deaths, but its impact is less pronounced when vaccine efficacy and vaccination fraction are both high. Social distancing also plays a role in reducing total and peak infections, which is attenuated in the presence of vaccination. We employed a thresholding methodology to assess the requirements of vaccine efficacy and the vaccination fraction to limit total COVID-19 deaths and peak infections to a 5% threshold. Our thresholding results quantify the impact of social distancing on total COVID-19 deaths and peak infections and are significant in their ability to inform public health policy for future outbreaks, as well as for SARS-CoV-2 itself as it continues to mutate and alter its transmissibility. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Funding Statement This study did not receive any funding ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable. Yes All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors