The U.S. COVID-19 vaccine program prevented about 1.1 million deaths and more than 10.3 million hospitalizations by November, according to a report released Dec. 14 by the Commonwealth Fund.
The U.S. began its COVID-19 vaccine program Dec. 11, 2020, when the FDA authorized Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Without the program, COVID-19 deaths would have been about 3.2 times higher and hospitalizations about 4.9 times higher than the actual toll in 2021, according to the report.
The report also found that daily COVID-19 deaths could have spiked to as many as 21,000 per day, nearly 5.2 times the peak of more than 4,000 deaths per day in January 2021.
The characteristics of three variants — iota, alpha and delta — were included in the analysis model, as well as the original coronavirus strain. Click here for more information on the Commonwealth Fund's methodology.