Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
When will the pandemic end? This is the question that has been hanging over just about everything since Covid-19 took over the world last year. The response can be measured by vaccinations.
Bloomberg has built the largest database of Covid-19 shots around the world, with more than 108 million doses worldwide. U.S. scientific officials such as Anthony Fauci have suggested that coverage cover 70% to 85% of the population before things return to normal. Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker shows that some countries are progressing much faster than others, with 75% coverage with a two-dose vaccine as the target.
Israel, the country with the highest vaccination rate in the world, is on its way to 75% coverage in just two months. The US will arrive just in time to usher in the New Year of 2022 (although North Dakota may arrive there more than six months earlier than Texas). As vaccinations take place faster in richer Western countries than the rest of the world, it will take the world 7.4 years at the current rate.
The Bloomberg calculator provides a snapshot of the time, designed to put today’s vaccination figures into perspective. It uses the most recent average vaccinations, which means that the time it takes to reach the 75% threshold will decrease as the vaccination numbers add up.
The calculations will be erratic, especially in the early days of deployment, and the numbers may be distorted by temporary interruptions.
For example, New York’s target date has been moved to 17 months after a winter this week. blizzard prevented some from being vaccinated. Similarly, Canada’s vaccination rate has dropped by half in recent weeks following reports of delayed vaccines. Based on Canada’s latest vaccination rate, it will take 9.7 years to reach 75% coverage. It may serve as a wake-up call for Canadian politicians and health officials, but that does not mean they are doomed to a decade of social distance. Canada has contracts to buy more vaccines per person than any other country, and vaccination rates are expected to rise.
The rate is likely to accelerate further as more vaccines become available. Some of the world’s largest hubs for vaccine manufacturing in India and Mexico are just getting started. More than 8.5 billion doses of vaccine have been contracted by countries through more than 100 agreements followed by Bloomberg. Only a third of the countries have even started their vaccination campaigns.
Vaccinations protect within a few weeks after the shots are fired against Covid-19. But if only a few people are vaccinated in a community, the virus can continue to spread unnoticed. As more people get the vaccine, groups of people begin to build a collective defense against the virus, allowing isolated sparks of infection to burn out instead of spreading in an outbreak. The concept is known as herd immunity.
In the scientific community there are conflicting definitions for when herd immunity is achieved. Is it enough when the protection of enough people has a measurable effect on the transmission speed? It can start well before 75% of the people are completely vaccinated. Others define it as the point when outbreaks can no longer be sustained. For example, even if there is a group of measles cases in a non-vaccinated community, the immunity of herds can prevent it from rippling in a country.
How we manage the numbers
The vaccines available today require two doses for complete vaccination. Our calculations for coverage are based on two doses per person in the population, but do not distinguish between first doses or second doses administered. These breakdown points can distort daily vaccination rates and are not available in more than 20% of the countries we follow.
A new vaccine by Johnson & Johnson recently showed positive results with a single dose in a large clinical trial. If approved, we will adjust the required doses in proportion to its market share in each country.
The vaccines have not been approved for use in children – these studies are currently underway. Our calculator, like the virus, contains children in the population that need to be protected.
One Bloomberg calculator is not responsible for any natural level of immunity that may result from the recovery of Covid-19. It is possible that places that are hit hard need a lower level of vaccination to prevent widespread transmission. Although there is evidence that people recovering from illness retain some natural defenses, it is unclear how much protection is offered or how long it can last. The vaccine is still recommended for people who have recovered from illness.
The calculator is the latest feature of Bloomberg’s Covid-19 Tracker. The projections are updated daily and are based on the average daily vaccinations in data collected from 67 countries and the US states and territories. Countries can be excluded if they are in the earliest stages of vaccinations or if they provide infrequent updates on their vaccination numbers.
More than 108 million shots were fired. Check out the latest figures on Bloomberg’s Covid-19 vaccine detection