Rich countries will get access to coronavirus vaccines earlier than others

Article tags EconomyCountry Analysis

Recent announcements that several coronavirus vaccines are effective have not altered The Economist Intelligence Unit’s economic and political forecasts for 2021 onwards. Although positive, these announcements represent only first, limited steps towards the development of safe and effective immunisation programmes.

The vaccines will not be available in quantities large enough in the coming months to be game-changing. Logistics and shipping will also be difficult. We, therefore, maintain our view that a vaccine will not start to be rolled out widely in developed economies before mid-2021. Access to the vaccine will be difficult initially as all developed countries race to acquire sufficient quantities and poorer countries struggle to secure funding. As a result, the rollout in middle-income and emerging countries will take much longer; we do not expect it to take place at a game-changing scale before 2022. The picture appears even bleaker for low-income countries; we do not expect most of these states to have wide access to a vaccine before 2022-23.

The map depicts our current assumptions for the global rollout of coronavirus vaccines, showing when we expect the shots to be widely available for the general population in each country (after priority or special groups have been vaccinated).

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Fri, 18th Dec 2020 Article tags EconomyCountry Analysis