Index – Economy – More than a million people have been vaccinated in the United States

In the United States, just days after the first Covid-19 vaccination was approved on December 11, more than a million vaccinated patients are detained, with 1,229,009 patients receiving the vaccine to date. The vaccine is a Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine that provides valuable protection after the first dose. Moderna’s vaccination using a similar procedure, which was approved in the United States a week after the Pfizer vaccine and has since received the green light in Canada, will also be included in the campaign soon.

With this, the United States surpassed China, where according to official figures, up to now one million have been vaccinated there. However, the credibility of this may be questionable, as authorities have reported this number for some time, while vaccinations will certainly continue. In third place is currently Great Britain, where it was also authorized by the supervisory authorities to vaccinate ahead of the Americas, including Pfizer, so 626,000 people in the country have received the vaccine so far.

This has certainly reached a new stage in the fight against the new type of coronavirus, although the 70 percent immunity required for herd immunity is still a long way off. This will be particularly difficult to achieve in light of the fact that our planet has a population of 7.8 billion and that the epidemic is present on every continent, including Antarctica. By the way, it would be possible to vaccinate all the inhabitants of the globe from the doses ordered so far, such as

However, there are large differences between countries and regions. The richest countries have requested staggering amounts, for example, Canada could vaccinate its entire population four times with the vaccines already requested. India has ordered the most vaccines per unit, more than 1 billion doses, but that would not be enough to vaccinate the entire population, about 85 percent of which could be vaccinated in the current situation. In contrast, Iran, which has been particularly hard hit by the epidemic, has so far ordered enough vaccines for just 5 percent of its population.

However, very welcome initiatives have also been launched to vaccinate the poorest countries. One of them is named after Mexican billionaire Carlos Sim, who, according to the BBC, bought enough vaccines through his foundation alone to help the poorest people in Latin America get vaccinated, largely with the help of AstraZeneca and the Oxford University.

One such initiative is Covax, organized by WHO, which will deliver 2 billion doses of the vaccine to the poorest countries. According to the manufacturers, British-Swedish AstraZeneca has by far contracted the supply of most vaccines, with nearly 3 billion doses tied. However, his vaccine is still pending approval and there are various obstacles and oddities around him. Such is the case that clinical trials were stopped in September due to unexpected side effects and then there was some controversy over the doses used. After that, the company announced that it wanted to combine its vaccination with the Russian vaccine that had been released so far to achieve the best possible effectiveness.

Novavax has been contracted in the United States for the second largest number of vaccines, with a dose of 1.3 billion, which may be cause for concern. So far, this company has promised vaccines against almost all major viral diseases, such as Ebola or Zika, but has never produced any. This is also upsetting in light of the fact that, in the meantime, they have raised $ 1.6 billion in state aid that American taxpayers regret. These are currently promising results for their ongoing clinical trials for April. Of course, its shareholders did well, the company the value of their securities has risen 3000% in the last 9 months. So far a total of 716 million doses of the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine have been ordered, the result of the collaboration between the United States and Germany, and the first shipments have already arrived in the country this morning.

(Top image: New York Fire Emergency Medical Service (FDNY EMS) employees sit for 15 minutes after receiving a Corona virus vaccine from Moderna in Manhattan on December 23, 2020. Photo: Carlo Allegri / Reuters)