Given the scarcity of safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, a chief policy question is how to allocate them among different sociodemographic groups. This paper evaluates COVID-19 vaccine prioritization strategies proposed to date, focusing on:
The stated goals of the prioritization strategies
The mechanisms through which the selected allocations affect the course and burden of the pandemic
The main epidemiological, economic, logistical, and political issues that arise when setting the prioritization strategy
The paper uses a simple, age-stratified susceptible–exposed–infectious–recovered model applied to the United States to quantitatively assess the performance of alternative prioritization strategies with respect to avoided deaths, avoided infections, and life-years gained. Additionally, the study investigates the strength of the equity motive that would support an allocation strategy attaching absolute priority to essential workers for a vaccine that reduces infection-fatality risk.
The results demonstrate that prioritizing essential workers is a viable strategy for reducing the number of cases and years of life lost. At the same time, the most significant reduction in deaths is achieved by prioritizing older adults in most scenarios.
Any organization or individual working in the field of immunization economics can submit findings, opportunities, calls to action, or other relevant work below to be shared with our community.