Vaccine Mandate

Question A

“Mandating staff vaccinations and/or regular testing at big employers would promote a faster and stronger economic recovery.”

Select Explanations

• Vaccine mandates would simplify constraints and free managerial resources to focus on operating the business, as opposed to focusing on compliance.

• While this is the most likely possibility, however I think that the fact that the virus is so mutable engenders a secondary worry that uneven vaccination globally could actually draw out the pandemic.

• More vaccination => fewer cases => more demand

• The risks are (1) that employers don’t comply and (2) that people quit instead of taking the vaccine. Noncompliance seems high in some parts of the country, and quitting has been observed in New York according to some reports. But on net it seems like New York’s policy is increasing vax numbers and a large proportion of workers comply. On net I don’t see an argument for how the mandate would hurt the economy; the costs of compliance would have to outweigh the massive benefits of having more people vaccinated.

Responses by the IGM Panel