Most governments are not yet on track to hit their vaccine roll-out targets

ON JANUARY 3rd, India’s medicines regulator approved the emergency use of two covid-19 vaccines, giving the green light to the shot developed by AstraZeneca and Oxford University, as well as a home-grown offering dubbed “Covaxin” from Bharat Biotech, based in Hyderabad. But there was a catch: according to Adar Poonawalla, the boss of the Serum Institute of India, the largest vaccine manufacturer in the world, approval of the Astrazeneca-Oxford vaccine was contingent on the company not exporting any doses abroad for several months in order to prioritise vulnerable Indians, 300m of whom the country hopes to vaccinate by July. Serum had already promised 200m doses to COVAX, a scheme to distribute covid-19 vaccines to poor countries.

Indian officials have since denied there was any such ban, claiming that exports to countries in South Asia will begin within weeks of the vaccine being rolled out this month. But the saga illustrates governments’ desire to inoculate their own citizens quickly, and their worries that there won’t be enough vaccine to go round. Some are more ambitious in their vaccination plans than others (see chart). Britain—which is currently in a third national lockdown amid record-breaking numbers of coronavirus infections—wants by mid-February to provide at least one dose of a vaccine to care-home residents and staff, frontline health workers, people over 70 and those deemed “extremely vulnerable” to covid-19. That’s 13.4m people, or just under 2m doses a week.(By January 5th Britain had administered 1.3m doses, having started on December 8th). America wants to immunise 100m by the end of the first quarter of 2021, plus another 100m by mid-year. China intends to inoculate 50m front-line workers before the lunar new year next month, the country’s busiest time for travel. Both Germany and France want to vaccinate 12% of their populations, representing 10m and 8m people respectively.