Variants, boosters turn rich-poor vaccine gap into chasm

By LORI HINNANT and MARIA CHENG
Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The global initiative to share coronavirus vaccines fairly already scaled back its pledge to the world’s poor once. Now, to meet even that limited promise, COVAX would have to deliver more than a million doses every hour until the end of the year. That seems unlikely: The vaccine alliance that helps run COVAX warned in internal documents that a substantial number of doses might only show up in late 2022 or even 2023. Even if COVAX secured the doses and surmounted the logistical hurdles, the developing world would still face a gaping need. The initiative’s new promise is for 1.4 billion doses. But according to the documents, mid- and low-income countries need 4.65 billion to vaccinate 70% of their populations. And that need is only expected to grow.