One recent alarm raised by the public health community is that too many people may opt against receiving a COVID-19 vaccine if one becomes available, which advocates claim will exacerbate the harm of the pandemic. There is a call for government intervention to raise vaccine takeup, but this is partly paternalistic and ignores that the harms imposed by the unvaccinated are mostly self-imposed and economic in nature.

Partly due to the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed, the development and supply of a COVID-19 vaccine are taking place at record speed while still maintaining required safety scrutiny. The value of this type of vaccine public-private partnership was discussed in a 2019 Council of Economic Advisers report, and the $10 billion spent on Operation Warp Speed is estimated to have an unprecedented return of about 2,800% if it speeds up the introduction of a successful vaccine by six months to January 2021.