Vaccines against COVID-19 are on the horizon; now is the time to manage the transition rationally by Miltos Makris and Flavio Toxvaerd published by VOXEU (11/ 2020)
“The prospect of an effective vaccine to Covid-19 in the near term makes it important to understand private and public incentives to suppress infection. This column examines how the prospect of a vaccine alters individuals’ incentives to self-protect between now and the arrival of the vaccine, and how a benevolent social planner would prefer individuals to self-protect. It finds that individuals tend to ramp up self-protection in anticipation of the vaccine, while the social planner manages the transition by introducing stricter suppression at early stages.
On 13 November 2020, standing in the Rose Garden of the White House under intense worldwide attention, President Trump announced the much-anticipated results of Operation Warp Speed, the US government’s signature effort to promote the development of an effective vaccine against COVID-19. With evident pride, Mr Trump hailed the recent announcement by the pharmaceutical company Pfizer that their most recent Stage III trial results indicated that their candidate vaccine may be as much as 90% effective. Furthermore, the president and subsequent speakers emphasised that if all goes well, the first vaccines will be delivered as early as December 2020 and that logistical planning for mass delivery was already well underway.
This creation of effective vaccines is undoubtedly a significant scientific and public health breakthrough, which will greatly change the course of the epidemic and become a central tool in the fight against the disease. But at the same time, it raises another important question: now that a vaccine is around the corner, how do we best manage the transition to a post-vaccine world where we no longer need to rely exclusively on non-pharmaceutical interventions? In other words, now that vaccines are coming to our rescue, does that mean that we as societies can ease some of the very costly restrictions that we have recently imposed and start living more normal lives?…”
