Vaccines at Velocity: Evaluating Potential Lives Saved by Earlier Vaccination in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

Fast development of COVID-19 vaccines likely averted millions of deaths. We estimate how many more lives could have been saved if safe and effective vaccines were available earlier in the pandemic, in particular, before the epidemic waves in winter of 2020. We fit an epidemiological model informed by retrospective data and simulate counterfactual vaccination scenarios for the United Kingdom and the United States in which vaccines are available between 30 and 90 days earlier. We find that up to 1 July 2021 reductions in mortality range from 10,000 to 48,000 in the UK and 53,000 to 130,000 in the US, depending on when vaccinations start. This corresponds to a maximum of 7.1 and 4 deaths averted per 10,000 people in the UK and US respectively. We find that our model is sensitive to uncertain vaccine parameters and benefits depend on the time horizon of the analysis. However, the large average reductions we estimate suggests that it is highly cost-effective to make large investments in strategies to expedite vaccine availability.