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Because the nation gears up for the rollout of an up to date COVID-19 vaccine, a brand new examine reveals the financial advantages of continued broad vaccination in adults.
In actual fact, the nation would in the end save more cash than it might spend on vaccinating each individual over age 65 with a single dose of an up to date mRNA vaccine in opposition to coronavirus, the examine concludes.
That is due to the facility of the vaccine to forestall deaths, hospitalizations, short- and long-term sickness and misplaced productiveness akin to misplaced workdays on this age group, the researchers report, based mostly on a pc mannequin. The mannequin centered on folks with out immunocompromising circumstances or drugs.
In the meantime, in middle-aged adults from 50 to 64 years outdated, broad vaccination is an efficient financial funding, the examine concludes. Even vaccinating wholesome younger adults age 18 to 49 would fall inside accepted limits for cost-effectiveness below sure circumstances.
The brand new examine, revealed in JAMA Community Open, comes from a workforce led by a pair of College of Michigan researchers who’ve performed many vaccine cost-effectiveness research below contract with the federal Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention, or CDC. The paper consists of a number of CDC researchers as co-authors.
Lisa Prosser, Ph.D., is the lead writer of the brand new paper and co-leader with David Hutton. Ph.D. of the broader vaccine cost-effectiveness analysis effort. She is a professor of pediatrics within the U-M Medical Faculty and of well being administration and coverage on the U-M Faculty of Public Well being, the place Hutton can be 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,” stated 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 really useful for older adults and people of any age with sure circumstances for each of the final two COVID-19 vaccination seasons.
The examine didn’t embrace knowledge from folks below the age of 18, due to the shortage of information.
On the whole, the examine finds that broad vaccination might forestall 391 hospitalizations and 43 deaths from extreme COVID-19 for each 100,000 folks over age 65 vaccinated. For these age 18 to 49, these numbers could be decrease, with 39 hospitalizations and 1 loss of life prevented for each 100,000 vaccinated.
The variety of circumstances of COVID-19, of any severity, that may very well be prevented by broad vaccination was about the identical for all three age teams, between 7,600 and eight,900 for each 100,000 adults vaccinated.
Prosser notes that declining COVID hospitalization charges could contribute to much less favorable financial outcomes in future analyses.
Present COVID-19 scenario
CDC knowledge reveals that greater than 47,000 People had COVID-19 listed on their loss of life certificates in 2024, with two-thirds of them having COVID-19 listed because the underlying trigger and 34% having it listed as a contributing trigger. That’s down sharply from the primary years of the pandemic, and down considerably from 2023.
Though the overwhelming majority of U.S. adults have acquired not less than one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine since they turned obtainable in early 2021, the share receiving the up to date vaccine in recent times has dropped markedly.
CDC knowledge present that 28% of adults over age 65 collaborating in conventional Medicare had acquired the 2024-2025 vaccine as of this previous February. As of April 2025, 23% of adults of all ages informed surveyors they’d acquired the 2024-2025 vaccine.
Earlier analysis and underlying mannequin
Earlier this 12 months, Prosser and colleagues revealed a paper within the journal Vaccine evaluating the cost-effectiveness of the nationwide funding in testing, shopping for and delivering the primary vaccines . In all, they present, this nationwide vaccine technique carried out in 2020 and 2021 greater than paid for itself after only one 12 months.
Even with out counting misplaced productiveness, the nationwide COVID-19 vaccine effort saved cash for many grownup age teams purely by avoiding medical prices, the examine concluded. General, amongst all adults over age 40, the nation saved extra in prevented medical prices than it spent on the vaccine effort.
The U-M workforce has introduced findings concerning the cost-effectiveness of a number of vaccines to conferences of Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention’s Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, which creates suggestions for vaccine use.
The mannequin utilized in the entire workforce’s research consists of every part from the price of the vaccine itself, to residence or lab assessments for the virus, to the chance of struggling any degree of COVID-19 sickness or vaccine response, to the standard value of receiving care at any degree of sickness, to the variety of days of labor misplaced for various ranges of sickness. The researchers included post-COVID circumstances, additionally known as Lengthy COVID or PASC for Submit-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19.
The mannequin additionally incorporates knowledge on precise charges and severity of sickness, and loss of life charges, for various age teams.
The mannequin makes use of conservative estimates, so the dimensions of the financial savings may very well be even bigger than the research report, Prosser notes. As an example, the mannequin doesn’t embrace the misplaced productiveness of people that took time without work work to take care of a sick grownup member of the family, sufferers’ out-of-pocket prices for therapy, or transportation to get to medical care.
Prosser notes that the present CDC suggestion is for everybody over the age of 6 months to get not less than one dose of the present COVID-19, although the CDC’s suggestion for youngsters with out an immune-compromising situation modified this summer time to incorporate shared decision-making between the kid’s mum or dad/guardian and a well being care skilled.
For people who find themselves age 65 and older, or immunocompromised due to a well being situation or therapy, the CDC recommends a second dose of the present vaccine six months after the primary.
Extra info:
Lisa A. Prosser et al, Price-Effectiveness of 2023-2024 COVID-19 Vaccination in US Adults, JAMA Community Open (2025). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2025.23688
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College of Michigan
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Broad COVID-19 vaccination makes financial sense, particularly for older adults, modeling examine finds (2025, August 13)
retrieved 13 August 2025
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