Economists do occasionally publish papers with which I agree: For the other ones, look here.
…I find that vaccines saved 748,600 lives through June 2023. That is, without vaccines, cumulative mortality from COVID-19 would have been closer to 1.91 million over this time period. In answering the second question, I find that behavioral efforts to slow the transmission of the virus before vaccines became widely administered were critical to this positive impact of vaccines on cumulative mortality. For example, with a complete relaxation of these mitigation efforts, vaccines would have come too late to have saved a significant number of lives. Earlier deployment of vaccines would have saved many lives.
Which yet again shows that out of the two extremes, John Snow and GBD, Snow was the more correct one both ex ante and ex post. Yet instead of taking an “L”, GBD proponents keep saying that we should not have locked down. Yes, shutting down outdoor playgrounds for a full year was ridiculous, but stopping mass gatherings and any goings on in tight public spaces until we get a working vaccine? Absolutely! Only next time, Operation Warp Speed should be set at Warp 5, not 0.1.(ᔥTyler Cowen)