21 April 2021 COVID

Weekly Vaccination Update: Global Vaccinations Fall

In this prime tracker, we review the latest vaccine developments globally. This week, we’ve added the Q2 supply schedule for EU member states, and how much they have received so far. On the details:

Global Outlook (Charts 1 & 2, Tables 1 & 2):

This week, an average of 15.7mn vaccinations were administered globally every day, down 13% WoW (Chart 1). The largest declines were in Asia, where average daily doses fell 23%. Meanwhile, European and North American countries continued to vaccinate relatively larger shares of their populations over the week (Chart 2). In all, 6.5% of the world’s population have now received at least one vaccination dose, up from 5.8% last week, and an estimated 4.2% have immunity to Covid-19.
European member states are expecting vaccination supplies to triple in Q2 vs Q1. The one-week J&J delay should only have caused a minor setback in Q2 projections, with the manufacturer representing just 12% of total orders. In the first two weeks of Q2, Norway and Cyprus have received the largest Q2 allocations so far. Germany, on the other hand, has only received 3.4% of its expected Q2 share, meaning another 81mn doses are still to come over the next couple of months (Table 2).

Share of Population Vaccinated (Table 1)

The ranking of countries in terms of population shares vaccinated with at least one dose, has remained broadly unchanged on last week. Those at the top – Canada, Singapore, Spain and Germany – all experienced large WoW percentage point increases. Meanwhile, Denmark moves ahead of France and Italy, and Sweden also moved up a couple of places.
On the breakdown, Israel has fully vaccinated almost all of those who have received the vaccine. Canada, Argentina, South Korea, Australia and Thailand, on the other hand, have predominantly administered just the first of a two-dose protocol. The share fully vaccinated in the UK has risen by 4ppts WoW. Around 70% of total daily vaccines administered in the UK right now are going to people who have already had one dose.

Doses (Charts 3 & 4, Table 1):

A large number of countries saw average daily vaccination numbers fall WoW. Most notably, India experienced a 27% WoW decline, equivalent to 1mn doses a day. Meanwhile, Singapore and South Korea were the only Asian countries on our list that expanded vaccination rollouts on last week.
Average daily doses across Latin American countries rose 7% WoW, driven by increases in Mexico and Brazil. The vaccination efforts of the five largest LATAM countries have recently pushed the number of population-adjusted daily vaccinations up and it is now not far behind DM countries (Chart 4).
Across the EU, daily average doses are down 7% WoW. In Hungary, the number is down 42%, having already received and administered the majority of its non-EU vaccine allocation from Russia and China. Denmark, on the other hand, has had a relatively strong week, despite stopping its rollout of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In Q2, Denmark would have received half a million AZN doses from the EU, equivalent to 9% of its total supply.

Immunity (Table 1):

Immunity is gained either via the vaccine (blue) or via infection over the last 6 months (orange). Israel and the UK are the only countries in which over 50% of the total population have Covid-19 immunity. For the latter, 45% is from the vaccine, and 7% is from infection. Sweden and the Czech Republic have the highest immunity shares from infection.
Projecting the current two-week vaccination rates forward, Hungary is still set to reach herd immunity by June. The EU’s date has been pulled forward from November to September 2021. The US is still on target to reach 80% immunity by July, as is Canada.