Is mandatory vaccination in population over 60 adequate to control the COVID-19 pandemic in E.U.?

Abstract

Vaccine hesitancy, which potentially leads to refusal or delayed acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines, is considered a key driver for the increasing death toll from the pandemic in the E.U.. European Commission and several member states’ governments are either planning or have already directly or indirectly announced mandatory vaccination for individuals aged over 60, the group repeatedly proved to be the most vulnerable. In this paper, an assessment of this strategy benefits is attempted. This is done by examining the reduction of Standard Expected Years of Life Lost (SEYLL) per person of the EU population over 60 as a function of their vaccination percentage. Publicly available data and some first results of the second iteration of the SHARE COVID-19 survey conducted during the summer of 2021 on acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines are used as input.