An article written by a Neumann student, who conducted months-long research about the effectiveness of vaccination against COVID-19 in Pennsylvania, has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Medical Virology.
Maria Ramunno, a mathematics major who graduated in May, found that “Covid vaccination is highly efficacious in preventing death from the disease. Even during a time when vaccine design was not optimally matched with the prevailing strains, vaccination was found to reduce death rate.”
She conducted her analysis at the county level, across the state of Pennsylvania, with data that were collected during the first half of 2022 from the state’s Covid Dashboard COVID-19 Data for Pennsylvania (pa.gov). Her work was funded by a Clare Boothe Luce research grant that she received last year.
While vaccination was very effective in preventing death from COVID, her data analysis also found that vaccination did not affect the degree of community spread of the disease.
According to Ryan Savitz, a professor of mathematics and Ramunno’s faculty mentor, “This journal is very highly regarded. Most of the people publishing in a journal of this caliber are either professors or doctoral students working under them.”
He believes that the results of the research have implications for public policy – that elected officials “should continue to encourage people to be vaccinated even as new variants emerge.”
With a $5,000 Luce undergraduate research scholar award, Ramunno set out last year “to collect as much data as we can to determine the epidemiological and societal factors most closely related to the spread of COVID-19, identify any trends, and let the public know what we find.”
“I was always the weird kid who liked math,” admits Ramunno, who is considering a career in biostatistics or computer programming. “I’ve been interested in being a biostatistician since my sophomore year in high school.”
The Journal of Medical Virology is a monthly peer-reviewed medical journal, which covers fundamental and applied research concerning viruses that affect humans. The journal encourages submissions from the research community and, in selecting those for publication, places emphasis on the originality and the practical impact of the research. It was established in 1977.