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Economy May Benefit From Making Employees a Vaccine Priority
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Investigators at the IMT School for Advanced Studies say that future rollouts should focus on workers, which would help avoid another lockdown.
Investigators at the IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca proposed new criteria for establishing the priority administration of COVID-19 vaccines, because of the results of a new study surrounding the COVID-19 crisis that Italy faced.
“We conclude that lockdowns should be avoided in the future by prioritizing the vaccination of essential workers and people more exposed to unemployment risk among the healthy and active population,” Massimo Riccaboni, professor of economics at the IMT School, said in a statement.
Investigators contend that vaccine campaigns should focus on beneficiaries of wage guarantees, employees who face a high unemployment risk, and essential workers, because it would help individuals return to work while also helping fix the economy.
Results of the study in Italy showed that, with a lockdown, there was a 1% drop in mobility, implying a 0.6% drop in excess deaths the following month.
However, a 1% drop in mobility also corresponded to a 10% increase in the Wage Guarantee Fund the next month.
Investigators also said that a COVID-19 certificate, allowing European Union individuals to return to school and travel, could also be required for workers soon.
They said that delivering vaccines to workers is getting more relevant, because of the unemployment risk this imposes, the investigators said.
Investigators will further research how the mobility patterns may influence employment risk in other countries and across different sectors of the economy.
Reference
COVID-19, who to vaccinate first among workers. EurekAlert. Press release. September 17, 2021. Accessed September 17, 2021. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/928643
