Perceived risk and vaccine hesitancy: Quasi-experimental evidence from Italy

Claudio Deiana, Andrea Geraci, Gianluca Mazzarella and Fabio Sabatini

No 212, Working Papers in Public Economics from Department of Economics and Law, Sapienza University of Roma

Abstract: In March 2021, Italian health authorities suspended the Vaxzevria vaccine (VA) for four days over reports of very rare blood disorders among recipients. We exploit the quasi-experimental setting arising from this break to study the drivers of vaccine hesitancy. Before the suspension, the VA vaccination trend followed the same pattern as Pfizer-Biontech (PB). After the suspension, VA and PB injections started to diverge, with VA daily decreasing by almost 60 doses per 100,000 inhabitants for the following three weeks. The resulting vaccination rate was 60 percent lower than the value that would have stemmed from the VA pre-suspension pattern. We show that the slowdown was weaker and less persistent in regions with higher COVID penetration and steadier and more pronounced in regions displaying greater attention to vaccine side e ects as detected through Google searches. The public's interest in vaccine adverse events negatively correlates with COVID cases and deaths across regions.

Keywords: COVID-19; Vaxzevria vaccine; Vaccine hesitancy; Google Searches (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I12 I18 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 17
Date: 2021-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea
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Journal Article: Perceived risk and vaccine hesitancy: Quasi‐experimental evidence from Italy (2022)
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