MORE THAN 7.26 BILLION DOSES OF COVID VACCINE ADMINISTERED WORLDWIDE

Mon 08 November 2021:

The biggest vaccination campaign in history is underway. More than 7.26 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 31.7 million doses a day.

In the U.S., 431 million doses have been given so far. An average 1.47 million doses per day were administered over the last week.

More than 7.26 billion doses have been administered—94 shots for every 100 people worldwide

In total, 94 doses have been given for every 100 people around the world—but the distribution has been lopsided. Countries and regions with the highest incomes are getting vaccinated more than 10 times faster than those with the lowest.

On a global scale, that’s a daunting level of vaccination. At the current pace of 9.15 million people getting their first shots each day, the goal of halting the pandemic remains elusive. Manufacturing capacity, however, is increasing, thanks to new vaccines and added capacity from existing drugmakers.

The Path to Immunity Around the World

Globally, the latest vaccination rate is 31,677,593 doses per day, which includes 9,153,329 people people getting their first shot. At this pace, it will take another 6 months until 75% of the population has received at least one dose.

Since the start of the global vaccination campaign, countries have experienced unequal access to vaccines and varying degrees of efficiency in getting shots into people’s arms. Before March, few African nations had received a single shipment of shots. By contrast, 130 doses have been administered for every 100 people in the U.S.

Delivering billions of vaccines to stop the spread of Covid-19 worldwide is one of the greatest logistical challenges ever undertaken.

Vaccine Nationalism

According to the Harvard Political Review, throughout 2020, numerous wealthy nations like Japan, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom spent billions of dollars to secure millions of vaccine doses for their respective countries through such bilateral agreements. By inundating drug manufacturers like Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna, AstraZeneca with billions of dollars in funding, these nations helped fund the research that brought multiple effective COVID-19 vaccines to market in record time; however, this funding only reserved vaccines for the countries wealthy enough to provide research funding for months during the height of the pandemic.

By January, 96% of Pfizer/BioNTech vaccines and 100% of Moderna’s doses scheduled to be produced by the year’s end had already been purchased. Before the pandemic reached its height, countries with 16% of the world’s population had a monopoly over half of all available vaccine doses. Today, while the virus continues to ravage countries like Brazil and India, pushing their health care systems towards collapse, the United States and other wealthy countries that bought millions of vaccines in advance of production are on the road to normalcy.

UN Secretary‑General António Guterres’ said in a video message to the World Health Summit, held in Berlin from 24 to 26 October, that the triumph of the vaccines — developed and brought to market in record speed — is being undone by the tragedy of an unequal distribution. Three quarters of all vaccines have gone to high- and upper-middle-income countries. Vaccine nationalism and hoarding are putting us all at risk. This means more deaths. More shattered health systems. More economic misery. And a perfect environment for variants to take hold and spread.

(with Bloomberg)

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