From the Spectator (PW)
It turns out that deploying vaccines is harder than it looks. A quick glance at the league tables makes that clear. Israel has jabbed a remarkable 45 per cent of the population, by far the highest rate in the world. The United Arab Emirates has managed 26 per cent, partly with China’s Sinopharm shot. The UK has managed a very credible 10.5 per cent, and the United States 6.9 per cent. But the rest of Europe has been lamentable. Only 2.1 per cent of Germans have been inoculated, and less than 1.6 per cent of people in France — which lags behind Slovakia.
At the current rate of the rollout, it will be 2024 before most of Europe hits the 70 per cent inoculation level believed to be necessary to take a population to a critical level of immunity. Australia and Japan have not even started yet, while much of the developing world is being left to fend for itself. At this rate, of the major economies, only the United States and Britain will vaccinate themselves out of lockdown this year, and both countries may have to introduce strict travel restrictions to avoid importing new strains from abroad.