By Tarun Sai LomteNov 24 2022Reviewed by Aimee Molineux A recent study published in JAMA Network Open estimated the return on investment of New York City’s coronavirus disease 2019 vaccination campaign.
A study reported that NYC Vaccine for All Campaign decreased disease burden considerably. This health success required significant financial investment for vaccine acquisition and delivery, vaccination promotion events, and addressing vaccine skepticism. Understanding ROI would offer valuable insights into vaccination campaigns and ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
Indirect health outcomes were the losses of workdays and production incurred from sickness and adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines. The total costs for the final investment value were calculated by calibrating an agent-based simulation model for confirmed and probable COVID-19 cases in the pandemic and a counterfactual scenario without vaccination in NYC, accounting for COVID-19 characteristics and SARS-CoV-2 variant timelines.
The authors estimated that vaccination precluded $27.96 billion of additional healthcare costs that would have been incurred without vaccination. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in 92,280 PYLL in NYC, with a VSL loss of $7.7 billion. The mean PYLL stood at 6.06 per individual. They noted that the total PYLL, without vaccination, would have been significantly more , leading to a VSL loss of $33.93 billion. Vaccination averted 315,724 PYLL and generated net VSL savings of $26.27 billion.