| dc.description.abstract |
A rush to preemptively secure COVID-19 vaccines resulted in high income countries
hoarding an excess supply while low- and middle-income countries are prevented from
equitable access. Previous work on equity in vaccine purchasing has compared cases
per million of COVID-19 to vaccination coverage but does not reflect urgent pressures
placed on healthcare systems. This analysis investigates vaccination coverage against
three measures of COVID-19 burden: deaths per 100,000 population, general hospital
capacity reached, and ICU capacity reached, in order to identify the countries overburdened
and underrepresented in vaccine purchasing. Publicly available data from the Duke
Launch & Scale Speedometer, IHME COVID-19 projections, and Johns Hopkins COVID-19
mortality reports are used for this analysis. While non-high-income countries comprised
64% of this dataset, they represented 93% of countries in ICU crisis, 87% in general
hospital capacity crisis, and 85% in a mortality crisis. This data provides evidence
for the creation of a priority list for equitable global allocation of vaccines to
low- and middle-income countries. High income countries can be incentivized to redistribute
their excess vaccine supplies by reframing measures of pandemic progress away from
nationalistic targets.
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