As per the data from the local government sources, there is a striking difference in the numbers as far as shared vaccination programs are concerned. The data compiled from local government sources by the Our World in Data project at the University of Oxford depicts how the goals of completing even the first dose of vaccination have not been achieved by some countries.
A person who has received a minimum of one dose is said to be vaccinated. While on the other hand, a person who has received the requisite number of doses is fully vaccinated.
Typically, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine classifies a person as “fully vaccinated” after two doses. Therefore, as per the data accumulated by the Oxford University for their Our World Data project, we see that less than half the world population has been vaccinated so far; and that kind of puts things into perspective.
The lack of availability of vaccine dosses, against the rising demands, worldwide is not surprising. It has been predicted to continue till the end of 2021. However, the dwindling immunity in the people has resulted in many countries like the United States, Israel begin with administering the booster dose.
Consequently, there has been a sudden spike in the vaccination campaigns. Booster doses are the add-on doses that are being administered to the fully vaccinated individuals, whose resistance to the virus is showing a decrease from the original doses.
So far more than 27 million booster doses have been given already, with many countries still lined up in the queue! Economically backward countries are dependent on the vaccine–sharing programs called Covax.
Contrary to the initial prediction to provide 2 billion doses by the end of 2021, it has cut short to provide 1.4 billion doses now, owing to miscellaneous problems revolving around – production, bans on exports, hoarding by wealthy nations, etc.
With such a limited supply of vaccines, this has led to a huge concern of a divide between various regions of the world. Africa has the least and most sluggish rate as compared to any other continent in the world, with just 6.7 percent of its population having received the first dose of vaccination.
As per the Our World in Data, approximately 78% of the vaccine shots have been used to cater the upper-middle-income nations, while only a meager 0.5 percent has been used to cater the low-income countries.
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This makes us ask a basic question, does a nation have to be rich to exist or battle a pandemic? Should a nation perish, if it is not wealthy? Do the other nations sit and be a mute, deaf and dumb audience, forgetting all compassion and humanity? Its high time humans took a call – the onus of existence lies on us!