COVID-19 vaccine delay would have cost Canada $156B: study

A study from the C.D. Howe Institute suggests Canada would have lost $156 billion in 2021 had COVID-19 vaccines been rolled out six months later than they were.

The loss would have been equal to about 12.5 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product.

A report released on Thursday by The Think Tank says the results show that vaccination was highly beneficial to population health and also cost-effective from an economic perspective.

Rosalie Wyonch, a senior policy analyst and author of the report, says vaccines were successful at reducing the number of cases, deaths and hospitalizations. Additionally, there were much larger benefits on the broader economy, she says.

Vaccine administration and procurement costs were about $3.7 billion. The report says approximately $3.3 billion to $5.8 billion were the direct savings related with averting COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations.

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The organization put a $27.6 billion value on deaths that were prevented.

It also prevented an estimated 54,500 cases of long COVID among workers in Canada. That would have accumulated to $331 million in lost wages in 2021 according to the report.

Canada’s auditor general reported earlier this month with mixed reviews concerning the vaccine rollout.

The report found tens of millions of doses are likely to expire and go to waste due to poor management of oversupply which would cost $1 billion, the auditor general’s report shows.

The demand for the first two COVID-19 vaccines doses were high, but demand decreased for booster shots, which contributed to oversupply, says Wyonch.

The C.D. Howe’s report says it is important to improve overall COVID-19 booster and influenza vaccine consumption.

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