Of approximately 7.7 billion people, there are about 5.7 billion who are 16 years old or older. Those are the ones who are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines. Bloomberg News examined 120 contractual agreements on vaccine production, as of late January, and determined that there were about 8.75 billion doses. Since Johnson & Johnson’s one-dose vaccine is about one billion of those, the 7.75 billion two-dose vaccines covers 3.875 billion people. The present contracted amount of vaccines would cover 4.875 of the 5.7 billion people, almost 86% of the way, leaving 825 million more to cover — or 1.65 billion more doses to produce. Of note, a full 25% of the present Covid vaccine production in the world (2.2 billion doses) comes from India.
Estimated total vaccine production from Pfizer and Moderna, along with other vaccines, has been increasing in January and February. There is a solid chance that enough vaccines to cover everyone, except children and babies, will be produced this year. But two more significant problems remain. One is that the poorer countries are standing in line behind the wealthier countries. Two billion doses are already committed through the COVAX program for underdeveloped countries, but presently it will take some luck to get even a quarter of that before July 1. The big question is whether wealthier countries figure out that they are shooting themselves in the foot, if they can’t allow even 20% of the poorer populations to be vaccinated before the wealthier countries allow 100% of their population access.
