Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Bancel, usefully noted that the industry-wide expansion of vaccine production over the last six months has been successful and that there will be enough vaccines for everyone in the world by the middle of 2022. He includes infants in his estimation. This would translate into 15-16 billion doses, about 50% higher and several months earlier than the goals in accepted discussions up to now (10-11 billion doses to cover 70-80% of the world by late 2022, at the earliest). Pfizer and Moderna have been the major components of ramping up production in the West.
However, a serious look at the gear-up would concentrate on China and India. Those two countries alone will likely account for more than 10 billion doses. Bancel’s statement is welcome, as almost no one else has dared, publicly, to move beyond the 10-11 billion figure, nor move up the time frame. The “crash program” method should be recognized, examined, and discussed for application to health systems, food production, etc. However, the discussion over vaccine shortages should be over; rather, the issue is a mobilization to distribute vaccines and to build public health systems around the world.
