Nearly six months after the approval of the first vaccines against Covid-19 for emergency use, the Guardian analysis shows that the vast majority of the world still does not have a substantial benefit.
Shortage of supply, security concerns, public apathy and slow deployment have caused most countries to remain dependent on heavy closures and other quarantine measures to reduce the severity of their outbreaks.
Clear differences have opened up between the handful of countries where vaccination levels are high, those struggling to increase their programs, and the many, mostly poor, countries that have so far received only a fraction of vaccine doses.
Mapping changes in mortality rates since January 31 against each country’s vaccination rates gives a snapshot of the state of the race to vaccinate the world against the virus. This is what he tells us.
Data
Vaccination rate data come from Our World in Data and show the total number of vaccinations in a specific country per 100 people. Countries that have not yet registered a vaccination rate have not been included.
Death data come from Johns Hopkins University. The change in deaths from 31 January is calculated by calculating the percentage of variations in deaths between the two-week period to 31 January and the two-week period to 19 April.
Countries that do not yet have a documented vaccination rate are excluded. Countries with an increase of more than 1,000% and fewer than five deaths in the two weeks to January 31 were excluded so that low baselines did not distort the international landscape.
Blocking rigor data comes from the Oxford Covid-19 government response tracker. The change is calculated by comparing a country’s average rigor score in February with the average rigor score in April. A change of -10 or less has been used to identify those countries that have opened up significantly in the last two months.