We model Covid-19 vaccine uptake assuming people are rational, skeptic or negationist.
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We calibrate the model in the UK and compute the share of vaccinable people.
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We found that the share of vaccinable is approximately 64%.
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Sceptics' and negationists' choices may prevent the UK from reaching herd immunity.
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Framing solidarity and other nudging tools may increase vaccine uptake.
Abstract
Policy makers require support in conceptualizing and assessing the impact that vaccination policies can have on the proportion of the population being vaccinated against COVID-19. To this purpose, we propose a behavioural economics-based framework to model vaccination choices. We calibrate our model using up-to-date surveys on people attitudes toward vaccination as well as estimates of COVID-19 infection and mortality rates and vaccine efficacy for the UK population. Our findings show that vaccine campaigns hardly reach herd immunity if the sceptics have real-time information on the proportion of the population being vaccinated and the negationists do not change their attitudes toward vaccination. Based on our results, we discuss the main implications of the model's application in the context of nudging and voluntariness versus mandatory rule-based policies.
