Vaccines for the COVID-19 α Variant: An Econometric Analysis

James Mcintosh

doi:10.24018/ejmed.2021.3.6.1076

James Mcintosh

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.24018/ejmed.2021.3.6.1076

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Abstract

This study examines the success of COVID-19 vaccines in four European countries and Israel for the α variant. These countries respond to the vaccines with varying degrees of success. Countries with successful vaccination programs take about 160 days to get to the minimum number of new cases. Only Italy and Israel came close to eradicating the virus. Vaccines and previous infections have a similar prophylactic effect on new infections. Second doses for the most part add little protection to those who have only one dose. Vaccines become very effective after seven days although there are some added benefits that accrue to individuals in the second week after vaccination. The effect of vaccines on new cases is non-linear and exhibits a decreasing marginal effect. COVID-19 is spread by asymptomatic carriers, a feature of the disease which was discernable at the same time that public health agencies were discouraging the use of masks by the general public and downplaying the importance of social distancing. These were major policy errors and led to many unnecessary deaths.

Highlights

Since the end of 2020 new vaccines have become available which give hope that COVID-19 can be treated effectively and that populations can be spared from the most damaging consequences of the virus. These are the class of mRNA vaccines that trigger an immune response without using the live virus that causes COVID-19
The model that will be used to analyze COVID-19 comes from the family of distributed lag models that have been developed by econometricians
One of the benefits of the methodology employed here is that it provides a procedure for dealing with asymptomatic carriers of the disease

Summary

INTRODUCTION

Since the end of 2020 new vaccines have become available which give hope that COVID-19 can be treated effectively and that populations can be spared from the most damaging consequences of the virus. Using data from Our World in Data [2] simple graphical relations between reported new cases of COVID-19 and the country’s vaccination rate are examined for five countries all of which are well into their vaccination program with at least 50% of the population with at least one dose. This data is analyzed using a distributed lag econometric model to answer some of the more technical questions.

DATA FROM FOUR LARGE EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND ISRAEL

AN ECONOMETRIC MODEL FOR COVID 19 DATA

Findings

DISCUSSION