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FACT BRIEF

Because the COVID-19 vaccine is free, does that mean it's not valuable in saving lives?

By Alexis Tereszcuk
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NO

A social media post falsely tries to compare consumer cost to effectiveness, saying COVID-19 vaccinations are free but if they saved lives "they'd be priced so high that you literally could not afford them ... like insulin."

It's not a valid comparison. The U.S. government pays the three manufacturers of COVID-19 vaccines in the U.S. billions of dollars for the shots, which are administered to people at no charge to save lives and stem the spread of the coronavirus. Insulin prices, meanwhile, are determined by the pharmaceutical companies that market insulin.

Health officials say cases, hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19 are increasing nationwide, with more than 97% of new hospitalizations being unvaccinated patients.

Over 607,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States as of July 20, 2021, according to the CDC. More than 336 million COVID-19 vaccinations have been administered in the U.S.

See a full discussion of this at Lead Stories
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Sources
US Department of Health and Human Services COVID-19 Care for Uninsured Individuals
US News & World Report CDC Head: COVID-19 Becoming ‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’
Centers For Disease Control COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
Lead Stories
Lead Stories is a fact checking and debunking website at the intersection of big data and journalism that launched in 2015. It scouts for trending stories, images, videos and posts that contain false information in order to fact check them as quickly as possible. It actively monitors the fake-news ecosystem and doesn’t wait for reader tips or reports before getting started on a story.
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About fact briefs published on Gigafact
Fact briefs are short, credibly sourced summaries that offer “yes/no” answers in response to claims found online. They rely on publicly available, often primary source data and documents. Fact briefs are created by contributors to Gigafact —a nonprofit project looking to expand participation in fact-checking and protect the democratic process. See all fact briefs here.