You will notice that in the Methods - Sensitivity Analysis section, I refer to the paper by Crawshaw et al. (No. 29). It was their results that prompted the analysis of a higher badger prevalence (variable 23 in the sensitivity analysis) - See Table S7, where the badger prevalence is doubled (100% increase). In Table S8, this change is shown to have no significant effect since the badger to cattle transmission rate needs to be reduced to constrain the cattle herd breakdown rate to a value seen in reality. In Table S9, this parameter change (a doubling of badger prevalence) has no effect on the choice of strategy, since the order of preference does not change, and the actual values only change slightly. This level of change is within that expected of the stochastic model.
Note, however, that we will continue to use a badger prevalence as dictated by the results of live testing, since individuals can only be ascribed to an infected category by such tests until they are dead.