August 8, 2023

THANKS, TONY!:

The Impact of Vaccines and Behavior on U.S. Cumulative Deaths from COVID-19 (Andrew Atkeson, WORKING PAPER 31525, NBER)

[I] find that vaccines saved 748,600 lives through June 2023. That is, without vaccines, cumulative mortality from COVID-19 would have been closer to 1.91 million over this time period. In answering the second question, I find that behavioral efforts to slow the transmission of the virus before vaccines became widely administered were critical to this positive impact of vaccines on cumulative mortality. For example, with a complete relaxation of these mitigation efforts, vaccines would have come too late to have saved a significant number of lives. Earlier deployment of vaccines would have saved many lives. I find that marginal changes in the strength of the behavioral response to COVID-19 deaths within the range of those responses estimated with the model have a significantly impact on cumulative COVID-19 mortality over this time period.

Posted by at August 8, 2023 12:00 AM

  

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