Immunity may curb pandemics
A Nature Communications analysis argues post‑pandemic population immunity — from vaccines and infections — has likely lowered the chance of new zoonotic coronaviruses becoming pandemics, suggesting durable community‑level effects beyond individual protection. That’s a big structural point for future pandemic risk modeling. (nature.com)
Nature Communications published the paper on 24 March 2026 by Ryan M. Imrie, Laura A. Bissett and colleagues (17-author team). (nature.com) The team combined empirical cross‑neutralisation assays on sera from people with differing COVID‑19 immunological histories with mathematical transmission models and framed a hypothetical novel sarbecovirus they call “SARS‑CoV‑X.” (nature.com) Their model simulations, parameterised by the serology, show a statistically significant reduction in the probability that a novel sarbecovirus establishes sustained human transmission, with outcomes varying by the degree of cross‑protection and the novel virus’s R0. (nature.com) Analyses report that using existing COVID‑19 vaccines preventatively could lower emergence risk even with co‑circulating SARS‑CoV‑2, whereas a theoretical vaccine narrowly specific to SARS‑CoV‑2 — one that elicits little cross‑protection — can paradoxically raise emergence probability by suppressing levels of naturally derived cross‑protection. (nature.com) The authors made their code and model outputs publicly available on Figshare (dataset posted 10 March 2025) and an earlier preprint of the analysis was posted to medRxiv in March 2025. ( ) (figshare.com) The paper frames SARS‑CoV‑2 circulation plus vaccination as creating an “immunological barrier” that modelers should now represent explicitly by including population‑level cross‑immunity and plausible R0 ranges when estimating zoonotic sarbecovirus emergence risk. (nature.com)
