How many people in the United States are alive today because pharmacists and other healthcare providers took on the mammoth task of providing COVID-19 vaccines?

A new study suggests that the early COVID-19 vaccination campaign in the U.S., ending the second week of May, prevented nearly 140,000 deaths and 3 million cases of COVID-19.

The report in Health Affairs suggests that, in the average state, the vaccination campaigns saved five lives per 10,000.

Indiana University-Purdue University researchers and colleagues report that based on population size, the most deaths were prevented in New York, which had 1.7 fewer COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 adult residents. The smallest reduction occurred in Hawaii, with 1.1 fewer COVID-19 deaths per 10,000 adult residents.

"This study brings into focus the dramatic success of the early months of the nation's coronavirus vaccine rollout," said senior author Christopher Whaley, PhD, a policy researcher at the RAND Corp. "The findings provide support for policies that further expand vaccine administration to enable a larger proportion of the nation's population to benefit."

While the COVID-19 vaccination campaigns continuing in the U.S. are lowering transmission of the virus, saving lives, and enabling a halting return to normal life, "the extent to which faster vaccine administration has affected COVID-19-related deaths is unknown," the authors point out.

The study team assessed the association between U.S. state-level vaccination rates and COVID-19 deaths during the first 5 months of vaccine availability, estimating that by May 9, 2021, the vaccines were linked to the reduction of 139,393 COVID-19 deaths, although the number is expected to be many times that by this point. The authors further advise that mortality-rate decreases had a statistical life benefit ranging between $625 billion and $1.4 trillion.

To estimate the number of COVID-19 deaths prevented by vaccines, the RAND Corporation and Indiana University researchers estimated likely mortality from December 21, 2020, and May 9, 2021. Information about vaccine doses administered in each state came from the Bloomberg COVID-19 Vaccine Tracker, and data on COVID-19 deaths for each state came from The New York Times' Coronavirus (COVID-19) Data in the United States database.

The article also notes how much state-level progress in delivering COVID-19 vaccines differed. For example, the authors recount how Alaska was the first to reach 20 doses per 100 adults on January 29, 2021, but Alabama was the last on February 21, 2021. While California was one of the first states to reach 120 doses per 100 adults in early May, many states have still not reached that level, they add.

"Our results suggest that further efforts to vaccinate populations globally and in a coordinated fashion will be critical to achieving greater control of the COVID-19 pandemic," said Sumedha Gupta, PhD, first author of the study and an economist at Indiana University-Purdue University in Indianapolis.

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