If the Objective is Herd Immunity, on Whom Should it be Built?

Abstract

Assuming that there is no other solution than herd immunity in front of the current pandemic, on which groups of citizens should we build this herd immunity? Given the fact that young people face a mortality rate which is at least a thousand times smaller than people aged 70 years and more, there is a simple rational to build it on these younger generations. The transfer of some mortality risk from the elderly to younger people raises difficult ethical issues. However, none of the familiar moral or operational guidelines (equality of rights, VSL, QALY, ...) that have been used in the Western world over the last century weights the value of young lives 1000 times or more than the lives of the elders. This suggests that Society could offer covid protection to the elders by recommending them to remain confined as long as this herd immunity has not been attained by the younger generations. This would be a potent demonstration of intergenerational solidarity towards the most vulnerable people in our community. The welfare gain of this age-specific deconfinement strategy is huge, as it can reduce the global death toll by more than 80% as compared to a strategy of non-targeted herd immunity.

Cost–benefit analysis of age‐specific deconfinement strategies

“…In fact, there is no reasonable valuation system that could reverse this result. Gollier (2020a) clarifies this point in a simple static analysis.…”

“…It remains to calibrate the value of lives. I discuss this critical issue in Gollier (2020a), remarking in particular that the absence of any democratic debate on this issue over the last five decades during which Western governments used a “value of statistical life” for policy evaluation is problematic. In this paper, I value a life lost at 60, 40, and 20 annual GDP/cap, respectively, for the young, middle‐aged, and senior classes.…”

“…What is key is the necessity to protect the seniors, in particular during the strong wave of contagion happening in the first semester of the pandemic. Building herd immunity by sending the young to school and the middle‐aged to work would be a demonstration of intergenerational solidarity towards the elderly people (Gollier, 2020a).…”

Antibody Tests: They Are More Important Than We Thought

“…In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the literature advocates many NPIs to reduce contagion and economic costs. Alvarez, Argente and Lippi (2020) and Glover et al (2020) argue that lockdowns and quarantines can increase welfare; Acemoglu et al (2020) and Gollier (2020) argue that age-specific lockdown and quarantine policies are far better than age-indifferent ones; Mitze et al (2020) document that mandatory mask use reduces deaths; Berger, Herkenhoff and Mongey (2020), Brotherhood et al (2020), Eichenbaum, Rebelo and Trabandt (2020 b ), and Piguillem and Shi (2020) argue that combining viral testing and quarantining increases welfare. In this paper, I argue that antibody testing is another NPI – not recognized so far in the literature – that reduces contagion.…”

Has Countrywide Lockdown Worked as a Feasible Measure in Bending the Covid-19 Curve in Developing Countries?

“…In the absence of any effective vaccine and clinically established treatment, any affected country could think of only two possible strategies to bring a control over the pandemic at an early stage of the outbreak Gollier (2020). Firstly, the entire population could be exposed to the virus with an aim to develop herd immunity in the community in a progressive way.…”