Brad DeLong's Grasping Reality β’ 315 implied HN points β’ 10 Jan 26
- mRNA COVID-19 vaccines greatly lower the risk of dying from COVID and are associated with about a 25% reduction in all-cause mortality.
- The reduction in nonβCOVID deaths is unlikely to be just selection bias; by preventing infections and longβCOVID harms across cardiovascular, thrombotic, metabolic, and neurological systems, vaccination likely reduces the lingering metabolic and inflammatory burden that raises other causes of death.
- Vaccine hesitancy has real costs: with about oneβfifth of people unvaccinated, adults aged 19β64 who skip mRNA vaccines face a substantially higher annual death risk (roughly 0.12% higher), implying many preventable deaths.