VACCINE HESITANCY, PASSPORTS, AND THE DEMAND FOR VACCINATION

Vaccine hesitancy is modeled as an endogenous decision within a behavioral epidemiological model with endogenous agent activity. It is shown that policy interventions that directly target costs associated with vaccine adoption may counter vaccine hesitancy whereas those that manipulate the utility of unvaccinated agents will either lead to the same or lower rates of vaccine adoption. This latter effect arises with vaccine passports whose effects are mitigated in equilibrium by reductions in viral/disease prevalence that themselves reduce the demand for vaccination.