COVID-19 vaccine mandates at colleges were effective in saving lives, especially in colleges that largely comprised low-income and minority communities, researchers say. Vaccine mandates on college campuses reduced total U.S. COVID-19 deaths last fall by approximately 5%, according to a working paper released this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
In total, the authors estimated that the mandates reduced new coronavirus cases by 339 per 100,000 county residents and prevented 5.4 deaths for every 100,000 residents. They estimated that the “value of lives saved” by the mandates was between $9.7 million and $27.4 million per 100,000 residents. For the fall semester of 2021, 668 two-year and four-year institutions mandated that their students and in some cases their faculties be vaccinated against coronavirus. The authors studied the data on vaccine mandates, mask mandates, and analyzed the colleges’ testing policies as well as county-level medical data such as COVID-19 case rates, hospitalizations and deaths. The researchers wrote: “99.5% of COVID deaths are among those over the age of 24. The reductions in deaths we document hence come almost entirely from the non-college population.” In other words, the researchers found that the schools’ vaccine and mask mandates had significant spillover effects on communities beyond the campus.
“‘The reductions in death …