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COVID-19 Vaccination Associated with Reductions in COVID-19 Mortality and Morbidity in the United States, and an Approach to Valuing these Benefits

Publication Date
Authors
Nicholas Holtkamp; Allison Kolbe; Trinidad Beleche

This ASPE Research Report models the estimated reductions in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths associated with COVID-19 vaccination from December 2020 through July 2021. To download the Research Report, please download the PDF to the right under “Files”. To explore our dashboard that presents the Report’s results, please see below.

Dashboard: Estimated reductions in cases, hospitalizations, and deaths associated with COVID-19 vaccination through July 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic has had and continues to have widespread impacts on Americans. As of November 2021, there have been over 46 million COVID-19 laboratory confirmed cases, and over 700,000 COVID-19 deaths in the United States. At the same time, there have been unprecedented collaborations and massive investments to accelerate the development of COVID-19 vaccines. This research report uses a regression model to estimate the reductions in COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths associated with COVID-19 vaccination across counties in the United States from December 2020 to July 2021. Our estimates suggest that COVID-19 vaccinations were associated with reductions of approximately 25.32 million cases, 1.38 million hospitalizations, and 213,000 deaths. In addition, we use estimates of “willingness to pay” (WTP) for reductions in health risks to value the reductions observed in COVID-19 outcomes. The total health benefits are estimated at $2.95 trillion, including reductions in deaths ($2.45 trillion), hospitalizations ($354.14 billion), and cases ($139.96 billion). Our results emphasize the importance of vaccination for reducing the spread of COVID-19 and saving lives. Moreover, they highlight the incredibly high societal rate of return on vaccine investment in conjunction with vaccine uptake. See the ASPE Research Report for additional information.

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