A structural model of coronavirus behaviour: what do four waves of Covid tell us?

This paper extends Meenagh and Minford (2021) to the four waves of infection in the UK by end-2021, using the unique newly available sample-based estimates of infections created by the ONS. These allow us to estimate the effects on the Covid hospitalization and fatality rates of vaccination and population immunity due to past infection: the latter was the most significant factor driving both trends, while the vaccination rate also had a significant short-run effect on the fatality rate. We also updated our policy comparison with Sweden for the most recent data, with similar conclusions: lower Swedish lockdown intensity relative to personal response in waves 1 and 2 caused much lower economic costs with no discernible effect on infections.