Israel has now administered a COVID-19 vaccine dose to almost 70% of its population, approaching the 75-90% level that many experts believe could offer herd immunity to a population.
Although still nowhere near Israel's rate, the US and UK also make it into the top 5 countries for vaccinations, with the UK having administered a vaccine dose to 19% of its population, and the US having done 13%.
How long to get to "fully vaccinated"?
Let's assume for the sake of argument that the necessary number is ~80% of a population. At the current pace the UK will reach that milestone in about 16 weeks — which is roughly the end of May. At the US' current speed, it will take around another 22 weeks to get to that level, which would be sometime in mid-July.
There are obviously many caveats to those possible timelines, probably most notably the risk of disruption or delay to the vaccine supply chain — which is exactly what has been happening across Europe — but they should be useful as a rough guide. It's also important to note that many of these vaccines being administered need a second dose to be fully effective, which will likely slow the progress.
Nevertheless, assuming these timelines are even remotely accurate, they raise an important question. If the UK, US and other more-developed nations do manage to vaccinate their populations during 2021, to what extent will they turn their attention and resource to helping less developed countries do the same?
For the full vaccination data by country check our Our World In Data.
