Paper detail

SIR Simulation of COVID-19 Pandemic in Malaysia: Will the Vaccination Program be Effective?

Since the end of 2019, COVID-19 has significantly affected the lives of people around the world. Towards the end of 2020, several COVID-19 vaccine candidates with relatively high efficacy have been reported in the final phase of clinical trials. Vaccines have been considered as critical tools for opening up social and economic activities, thereby lessening the impact of this disease on the society. This paper presents a simulation of COVID-19 spread using modified Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) model under vaccine intervention in several localities of Malaysia, i.e. those cities or states with high relatively COVID-19 cases such as Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Sabah, and Sarawak. The results show that at different vaccine efficacy levels (0.75, 0.85, and 0.95), the curves of active infection vary slightly, indicating that vaccines with efficacy above 0.75 would produce the herd immunity required to level the curves. In addition, disparity is significant between implementing or not implementing a vaccination program. Simulation results also show that lowering the reproduction number, R0 is necessary to keep the infection curve flat despite vaccination. This is due to the assumption that vaccination is mostly carried out gradually at the assumed fixed rate. The statement is based on our simulation results with two values of R0: 1.1 and 1.2, indicative of reduction of R0 by social distancing. The lower R0 shows a smaller peak amplitude about half the value simulated with R0=1.2. In conclusion, the simulation model suggests a two-pronged strategy to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia: vaccination and compliance with standard operating procedure issued by the World Health Organization (e.g. social distancing).