Whom to Vaccinate First - Some Important Trade-offs

Rikard Forslid and Mathias Herzing ()

No 15800, CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers

Abstract: This paper models the current pandemic to analyze vaccination strategies in a setting with three age groups that differ with respect to their fatality rates. The model also accounts for heterogeneity in the transmission rates between and within these age groups. We compare the outcomes in terms of the total number of deceased, the total number of infected, the peak infection rate and the economic consequences. We find that fatalities are almost always minimized by first vaccinating the elderly, except when vaccination is slow and the general transmission rate is relatively low. In this case deaths are minimized by first vaccinating the middle-aged as this group is responsible for substantial spreading of the virus to the elderly. With regard to the other outcome variables it is always best to vaccinate the middle-aged group first. A trade-off may therefore emerge between reducing fatalities on the one hand and lowering the number of infected as well as maximizing the economic gains from vaccinations on the other hand.

Keywords: Vaccines; Sir-model; Covid-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-02
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15800 (application/pdf)
CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:15800

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://cepr.org/publications/DP15800

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in CEPR Discussion Papers from C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers Centre for Economic Policy Research, 33 Great Sutton Street, London EC1V 0DX.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().