Data drive: Covid-19 vaccination picks up pace in EMEs

While a large vaccine cover is central to beat Covid-19—data from some countries that have done wide immunisation seems to suggest that vaccination not only prevents the disease but also checks spread—India has been doing rather poorly in expanding cover, even though it has nevertheless managed to administer close to 7 crore doses so far.

An analysis by UBS Global Research, titled Global Vaccination Tracker—EM vaccination pace surges, suggest that global vaccination pace remains quite volatile at present.

It reports that the pace of vaccination in emerging markets has “jumped from an annualized rate of 16½% of the population last week to 28% this week.” This has largely been on the basis of big jumps in the pace achieved by China and Russia, both of which report data at a lower frequency than other nations. This puts the world back on track to inoculating slightly above a third of its population in 2021.

Led by the UK and the US, developed economies are also on track to achieving inoculation for around three-quarters of their population. To curb recurrence (waves), as Dr Srinath Reddy of PHFI has pointed out in an article recently, India needs to step up its vaccination efforts.