Unreliability in Simulations of COVID-19 Cases and Deaths Based on Transmission Models

Two papers authored by the same research group were published in academic journals in October 2023, both of which simulate counterfactual COVID-19 cases and deaths using transmission models. One paper estimates that the COVID-19 cases and deaths from Feb 17 to Nov 30, 2021 in Japan would have been as many as 63.3 million and 364 thousand respectively had the vaccination not been implemented, where the 95% confidence interval is claimed to be less than 1% of the estimated value. It also claims that the cases and deaths could have been reduced by 54% and 48% respectively had the vaccination been implemented 14 days earlier. The other paper estimates that the number of cases in early 2022, Tokyo would have been larger than the number of populations in the age group under 49 in the absence of the vaccination program. In this paper, we reexamine the results given by these papers to find that the simulation results do not explain the real-world data in Japan including prefectures with early/late vaccination schedules. The cause of discrepancy is identified as low reliability of model parameters that immensely affect the simulation results of case and death counts. Leaders of public healthcare are required to discern the reliability and credibility of simulation studies and to prepare for variety of possible scenarios when reliable predictions are not available.### Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.### Funding StatementThis study did not receive any funding### Author DeclarationsI confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.YesI confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the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.YesI 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).YesI have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable.YesAll the data used for the study are available from the corresponding author upon request.