The Economics of Covid Vaccines and Mitigation

With a team at Oxford, I am developing an online survey and accompanying social science discrete choice experiment (DCE) to elicit preferences from a national sample of the US public regarding prioritizing access by specific groups to hypothetical COVID-19 vaccines. Data will be analyzed to determine public attitudes on: which groups should receive the initially scarce supply of the vaccine; private vs. public payment; equity vs. efficiency in allocation; and personal willingness to get vaccinated, among other factors. Findings will help the government to distribute the new vaccines. A second study is similar but will be conducted in nursing homes in order to determine the best trade-offs across efforts to keep residents, families and staff covid-free yet not isolate residents to the detriment of their mental health. A third related project uses the same methods to examine utility trade-offs in preferences about personal mitigation strategies such as wearing masks, social distancing and test and trace. Some of the studies have companion studies in the UK and other. Findings will be policy relevant. We aim to distribute our findings widely.