Use this Covid-19 calculator to consider the costs and benefits of policies associated with reducing the number of deaths from Covid-19. There are three policies built into calculator, and for each policy you can select the timing and the effectiveness of the policy for the first two years of the pandemic:
To use the calculator, input values for NMI’s, vaccine development, death rate and cancer deaths and click Calculate. The calculator will show you expected deaths, expected QALY losses, costs and cost per QALY gained based on your input assumptions.
Potential values: For NMIs, there have been many estimates, ranging from no effect to an over 50% reduction in the spread of Covid-19. For the Death Rate, a reasonable estimate would be 0.5%, declining to 0.2% over the course of the pandemic. Vaccines were deployed during the second six months of the pandemic but were not widely available until near the end of the first year of the pandemic (the end of time period 2).
Interpretation: The key outcome is the cost per “QALY” gained. QALYs represent a standardized life year. There is not a clear consensus on how much society should pay for an additional healthy life year, but common values are $50,000 per QALY gained to $150,000 per QALY gained.
The purpose of this calculator is not to produce estimates of the cost effectiveness of different policies, but it is to help think about a) how different policies interact and b) what implicit assumptions you are making if you support different polices – and whether those assumptions are realistic. It is also intended to help you think about “what if” scenarios – what if a vaccine had been available sooner? What if NMIs are very effective or very ineffective? How do unintended cancer deaths impact preferred policies?