How Should a Safe and Effective COVID-19 Vaccine be Allocated? Health Economists Need to be Ready to Take the Baton

Every extra month spent without a COVID-19 vaccine comes at a substantial cost to both global public health and the economy, making it almost impossible to overspend on the research, development and production of a vaccine [2]. [...]in interim advice, the JCVI has already indicated prioritisation of frontline health and social care workers in the allocation of a vaccine due to them being at “increased personal risk of exposure to infection with COVID-19” [20]. [...]if occupational risk is the basis of prioritisation, then many other workers (e.g. bus drivers) face work-related exposure, which should be considered in a more comprehensive prioritisation exercise. [...]continuing lockdown is having such a detrimental economic impact [21] that there is a strong argument for considering productivity losses, which are not usually counted in the evaluation of vaccines for other diseases [22]. Given the emerging evidence on the relative risk of mortality based on databases such as the UK Biobank [23], it should be possible to estimate potential quality-adjusted life-years gained [24].