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Vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic: lessons from failure and success

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  • Scott Duke Kominers
  • Alex Tabarrok

Abstract

The losses from the global Covid-19 pandemic have been staggering—trillions in economic costs, on top of significant losses of life, health, and well-being. The world made significant and successful investments in vaccines to mitigate the pandemic, yet there were missed opportunities, as well. We review what has been learnt about the value of vaccines, the speed at which vaccines can be developed, and the optimal and ethical approaches to vaccine distribution, as well as other issues related to pandemic and emergency preparedness. Surprisingly, spending on vaccines remains far below that which would be justified by the social return. We remain poorly prepared for future pandemics and other emergencies.

Suggested Citation

  • Scott Duke Kominers & Alex Tabarrok, 2022. "Vaccines and the Covid-19 pandemic: lessons from failure and success," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press and Oxford Review of Economic Policy Limited, vol. 38(4), pages 719-741.
    • Handle: RePEc:oup:oxford:v:38:y:2022:i:4:p:719-741.
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    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/oxrep/grac036
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Elinder, Mikael & Erixson, Oscar & Öhman, Mattias, 2023. "Cognitive ability, health policy, and the dynamics of COVID-19 vaccination," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    2. Emily Cameron-Blake & Helen Tatlow & Bernardo Andretti & Thomas Boby & Kaitlyn Green & Thomas Hale & Anna Petherick & Toby Phillips & Annalena Pott & Adam Wade & Hao Zha, 2023. "A panel dataset of COVID-19 vaccination policies in 185 countries," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(8), pages 1402-1413, August.
    3. Mingming Chen & Qiangsong Wu & Zilong Wang & Qi Qi & Yi Hu & Tenglong Li, 2026. "The adaptive large language models for vaccine prediction: A novel approach to vaccine demand prediction with engineered deviation prompts," PLOS Digital Health, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(3), pages 1-14, March.
    4. Donovan Guttieres & Carla Van Riet & Nico Vandaele & Catherine Decouttere, 2025. "Expanding modeling boundaries to design more resilient vaccine supply networks," Health Care Management Science, Springer, vol. 28(4), pages 583-590, December.

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