The U.S. COVID-19 Vaccination Program at One Year: How Many Deaths and Hospitalizations Were Averted?

Commonwealth Fund December 14, 2021
Eric C. Schneider, Arnav Shah, Pratha Sah, Seyed M. Moghadas, Thomas Vilches, Alison Galvani

Highlights

• In the absence of a vaccination program, there would have been approximately 1.1 million additional COVID-19 deaths and more than 10.3 million additional COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S. by November 2021.
• Without the U.S. vaccination program, COVID-19 deaths would have been approximately 3.2 times higher and COVID-19 hospitalizations approximately 4.9 times higher than the actual toll during 2021.
• If no one had been vaccinated, daily deaths from COVID-19 could have jumped to as high as 21,000 per day — nearly 5.2 times the level of the record peak of more than 4,000 deaths per day recorded in January 2021.

Background

Nearly 800,000 Americans have died so far during the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic, with more than half those...

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