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Prioritising people with many face-to-face contacts in their work can increase the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns. Hendrik Nunner, sociologist at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ: ‘Prioritising people like supermarket cashiers and teachers in vaccination campaigns helps to rein in the spread of COVID-19 more quickly.’ Nunner and his colleagues write about this in their article entitled , published in Scientific Reports on 14 January. 

At the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, the number of contacts people had was not taken into account.

This is not an entirely new finding; scientists researching social networks have been aware for some time that vaccination campaigns are most effective when high-contact individuals are vaccinated first. But at the start of the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns, the number of contacts people had was not taken into account. Nunner understands why: ‘Not only is that private information, but it’s also incredibly difficult to measure. So it’s advisable to focus on people in high-contact occupations.’

Simulations

In their research, Nunner and his colleagues used computer simulations to track and analyse the spread of diseases in social networks. Nunner: ‘We used labour market figures to determine the size of various occupational groups. We then used data on the number of contacts on an average working day in each of the occupational groups to estimate the number of contacts per worker.’

Prioritising high-contact occupations halves the number of vaccines required.

Twice as effective

The simulations confirmed that the effectiveness of vaccination campaigns is highest when people with high-contact occupations are vaccinated first. Nunner: ‘We found that prioritising high-contact occupations halves the number of vaccines required. So, a vaccination approach prioritising these occupations is twice as effective in producing the same drop in transmissions than a random vaccine distribution.  This can benefit society as a whole, as a more effective distribution of vaccines reduces costs, as well as the total number of transmissions and the number of people who get infected at the same time.’

Vulnerable

Nunner notes that he certainly does not want to imply that top priority shouldn’t go to people with vulnerable health. ‘My colleagues and I merely want to emphasise that the number of contacts someone has on an average (working) day is one of the key factors that should be taken into account. This has proved to be an effective way to contain the further spread of the virus.’