As the nation gears up for the rollout of an updated COVID-19 vaccine, a new study shows the economic benefits of continued broad vaccination in adults. 

In fact, the country would ultimately save more money that it would spend on vaccinating every person over age 65 with a single dose of an updated mRNA vaccine against coronavirus, the study concludes. 

That’s because of the power of the vaccine to prevent deaths, hospitalizations, short- and long-term illness and lost productivity such as lost workdays in this age group, the researchers report based on a computer model. The model focused on people without immunocompromising conditions or medications.

Meanwhile, in middle-aged adults from 50 to 64 years old, broad vaccination is a good economic investment, the study concludes. Even vaccinating healthy young adults age 18 to 49 would fall within accepted limits for cost-effectiveness under certain conditions. 

The new study, published in JAMA Network Open, comes from a team led by a pair of University of Michigan researchers who have done many vaccine cost-effectiveness studies under contract with the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. The paper includes multiple CDC researchers as co-authors.

Lisa Prosser, Ph.D., is the lead author of the new paper and co-leader with David Hutton. Ph.D. of the broader vaccine cost-effectiveness research effort. She is a professor of pediatrics in the U-M Medical School and of health management and policy at the U-M School of Public Health, where Hutton is also a professor. 

“We show that a single dose of 2023-2024 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine averted substantial illness and death across age groups, and that this led to economically attractive results for both of the older age groups across wide variations in the parameters of the model,” said Prosser. “However, we also find that a second dose in non-immunocompromised adults under age 64 was not economically favorable, though a second dose in adults over age 65 was.”

She notes that second doses have been recommended for older adults and those of any age with certain conditions for both of the last two COVID-19 vaccination seasons.
The study did not include data from people under the age of 18, because of the lack of data. 

In general, the study finds that broad vaccination could prevent 391 hospitalizations and 43 deaths from severe COVID-19 for every 100,000 people over age 65 vaccinated. For those age 18 to 49, those numbers would be lower, with 39 hospitalizations and 1 death prevented for every 100,000 vaccinated. 

The number of cases of COVID-19, of any severity, that could be prevented through broad vaccination was about the same for all three age groups, between 7,600 and 8,900 for every 100,000 adults vaccinated. 

Prosser notes that declining COVID hospitalization rates may contribute to less favorable economic outcomes in future analyses.

Source: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news-events/news/broad-covid-19-vaccination-makes-economic-sense-especially-older-adults-study