1 rich Libsyn https://www.libsyn.com 90 600 As COVID-19 swept across the globe, many nations struggled to define a cohesive public health strategy to prevent the spread of the disease. However, in spite of the lack of a clear plan, improvised strategies of behavioral changes—e.g., masking, social distancing—slowed transmission until a vaccine could be developed. The new BPEA paper, “The impact of vaccines and behaviors on U.S. cumulative deaths from COVID-19,” estimates that the ad hoc strategy prevented close to 800,000 deaths. On this episode, epidemiologist and paper co-author Stephen Kissler talks with Brookings Senior Fellow Carol Graham about the model they used to study COVID-19's impacts and what can be done to improve the government response to future pandemics.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp; This is the final episode of season four of the podcast. Show notes and transcript The Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity is part of the&amp;nbsp;Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen on&amp;nbsp;Apple,&amp;nbsp;Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to&amp;nbsp;podcasts@brookings.edu. Brookings Podcast on Economic Activity https://www.brookings.edu/BPEA <iframe title="Libsyn Player" style="border: none" src="//html5-player.libsyn.com/embed/episode/id/31747242/height/90/theme/custom/thumbnail/yes/direction/forward/render-playlist/no/custom-color/88AA3C/" height="90" width="600" scrolling="no" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe> https://assets.libsyn.com/secure/item/31747242