New collaborative preprint on the risk and interpretation of ‘breakthrough infections’ amidst declining childhood vaccination rates and a sustained, national measles epidemic, co-led with Mallory Harris in collaboration with Akash Arani, Tapan Goel, Kejia Zhang, Stephen Beckett, Nathan Lo and Jonathan Dushoff. 

Conventional epidemic theory assumes that individuals mix at random – leveraging this simplification links observed fractions of breakthrough infections to vaccination coverage. Our new analysis shows that as vaccine coverage declines and interactions between vaccinated and non-vaccinated individuals increase, then the number of breakthrough infections may increase. This comes with significant risks. Read more here.