BLOOMBERG – Over a year into the biggest vaccination campaign in history, more than 10.6 billion doses have been administered across 184 countries, according to data collected by Bloomberg. The latest rate was roughly 27.5 million doses a day.
In the U.S., 552 million doses have been given so far. During the last week, shots were administered at an average rate of 210,462 doses a day.
More than 10.6 billion doses have been administered—135 shots for every 100 people worldwide
The Legacy of Omicron
The Covid-19 vaccine has changed the course of the pandemic. In total, 135 doses have been given for every 100 people around the world. In countries that reached the highest levels of vaccination, death rates plummeted.
Amid this progress, the world was caught off guard when the omicron variant rose to prominence in late 2021. Omicron proved somewhat less severe than previous variants, but it spread much faster.
Millions of vaccinated people have gotten sick from the omicron strain, but the shots served their most important function—preventing severe illness.
During the omicron wave, vaccination with a booster reduced the chance of hospitalization and death by more than 90%. Sudden spikes of cases from the fast-moving variant have pressured health systems, but the outlook for the average Covid patient has improved significantly.
‘Pandemic of the Unvaccinated’
In early 2021, Israel was first to show that vaccines were bending the curve of Covid infections. The country led the world in early vaccinations, and cases declined rapidly. A similar pattern of vaccination and recovery was repeated across dozens of countries.
New, more transmissible variants caused renewed outbreaks, but in these subsequent waves, unvaccinated patients faced far higher risk of hospitalization and death.
This disparity in outcomes led health officials to dub the current phase of Covid a “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
Since the start of the global inoculation campaign, countries have experienced unequal access to vaccines … read more.
