Spotlight on Continuing Differences in Countries’ COVID-19 Vaccine Rates
Since vaccinations against COVID-19 became available at the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, governments around the world have taken more or less proactive steps to ensure vaccination protection for their citizens. The resulting success rates are correspondingly uneven in terms of driving down rates of infection, serious illness, and death.
The Challenge of Getting the World Vaccinated
As of late October 2021, experts estimated that only about 3 billion—out of a total of 7.9 billion—of the world’s people are fully vaccinated. (About 3.85 billion people have received at least one dose of vaccine.) Getting the pandemic under control will require immunizing a larger percentage of the world’s population in order to reach the required critical mass.
The major challenges remain: “vaccine hesitancy,” the logistics of production and distribution, and the fact that wealthier nations still hold the edge in a world of limited vaccine supplies.
Overall, experts note that relative national wealth, a strong public health infrastructure, and a population well-educated on the benefits of vaccines are leading factors predicting success. For many African nations, vaccine rates remain in the single digits, for example, and India has achieved only about a 22 percent full vaccination rate.
Most Vaccinated Nations Tend to Be Smaller, Compact
According to an October 6, 2021 article in U.S. News & World Report, the governments that have achieved the highest percentages of vaccinated people aren’t necessarily the most wealthy, although they do tend on the whole to be more compact geographically. Gibraltar topped the list, with more than 97 percent of its residents fully vaccinated. The countries with above-80-percent full vaccination rates also include Portugal, the United Arab Emirates, the Cayman Islands, and Iceland. Those coming in above 70 percent include Singapore, Spain, Chile, Cambodia, Qatar, and Israel.
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted a figure of only 57.4 percent of United States residents fully vaccinated as of October 25, making the country an outlier among wealthier Western nations.
Success Even in the Face of Delta
Looking at individual national success stories, Chile stands out. Public health authorities note the country’s history of pro-vaccine policies, carefully strategized vaccine rollout campaigns, and an easy and accessible system for obtaining vaccination. Similar factors are in play in nations like Israel and Iceland.
Driven by the more contagious delta variant, COVID infections in even these well-vaccinated countries have seen upticks over the summer and fall of 2021. Even so, as data emerged, it clearly showed significant reductions in cases of severe illness and death among people fully immunized with one of the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna).