Thread by @joshmich

Over 7 billion Covid-19 vaccine doses have been produced globally to date, with >1.35 billion more doses produced each month now.

Sinovac and Sinopharm produce the greatest number of vaccines monthly, with Pfizer and AstraZeneca not far behind. 1/

By the end of this year the world is likely to produce over 12 billion vaccine doses of all vaccine types.

By June 2022 the number produced could reach double that – 24 billion doses (assuming all goes well, and it usually doesn’t) 2/

Even after reserving doses for boosters, Western countries are likely to accumulate large stockpiles of vaccines over the coming months, perhaps as many as 1.2 billion doses by the end of this year.

These “surplus” doses could be redistributed to lower income countries. 3/

Adding up expected supply purchased through COVAX, bilateral deals and donations, and potential re-distributions, lower income countries could have access to sufficient doses for 70% of their populations by May 2022 4/

Having systems ready to distribute these doses is another matter, as access is not the same as getting those doses into arms.

For one thing, almost 70% of potentially re-distributable vaccine doses are mRNA vaccines with stricter cold-chain requirements 5/

If production and redistribution continues to ramp up, it is possible that by early next year the most pressing constraints on vaccinating populations in lower income countries will be related to distribution, rather than supply.

The above estimates on global Covid-19 vaccine production come from @airfinity, presenting at a @CGDev event earlier today.

Thanks @glassmanamanda and CGD for hosting the event. 6/
cgdev.org/event/covid-19…