The World Economic Forum has created a visualization tracking country-by-country progress made on vaccination to date.

 

Countries around the world are racing to vaccinate their populations against COVID-19.

 

In order to reach herd immunity, it’s estimated that at least 60% of a population (and as much as 90%) must become immune thanks either to prior infection or vaccination. But as of 10 February nearly 130 countries, with a collective population of 2.5 billion, had yet to administer a single vaccine dose.

 

While some 10 different COVID-19 vaccines have been approved or authorized for emergency or limited use, the practical business of administering jabs has been hindered by staffing and supply shortages, procurement hiccups, and geopolitics. Concerns have also been raised about equitable access for poorer countries and historically-marginalized communities.

 

But there have also been positive signs, including Israel’s relatively swift rollout, an upwardly revised daily vaccination target in the US, and India’s distribution of free doses to countries including Myanmar and Bangladesh.

 

The Forum has created a visualization tracking the progress made to date on vaccination against COVID-19, on a country-by-country basis.

 

While that presents a good illustration of initial progress, it’s a somewhat limited view of the number of people fully vaccinated – given that many vaccines require more than one dose, and the interval between them can be nearly a month.

 

The Convidecia vaccine developed in China may just require just one dose, for example, but the Pfizer-BioNTech version already approved for use in several countries and the Sputnik V vaccine developed in Russia are among those that call for two.

 

The discovery of new, potentially more deadly coronavirus mutations has added a sense of urgency to efforts to contain the pandemic – while prompting the exploration of ways to redesign existing vaccines.

 

For more context, here are links to further reading from the World Economic Forum’s Strategic Intelligence platform.

By Andrew Berkley & John Letzing