Mix & Match Approach to COVID Vaccines is Paying Off

An analysis of COVID-19 vaccination progress and the number of vaccines in use around the world shows that relying on a high number of vaccines can have positive effects in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

Most countries around the world have only authorized a single vaccine so far, among them most low-income countries which rely on the COVAX initiative’s supply of the AstraZeneca vaccine. Middle income countries which are using two or three vaccine types typically had better success in progressing their vaccination campaigns than those using only one vaccine.

While high income countries predicably did better in their campaigns, few authorized more than three vaccines and most relied on the combination of the Moderna, Pfizer and AstraZeneca varieties. There seems to be some kind of glass ceiling, however, for most high-income countries and few had surpassed 25 vaccine doses per 100 of population by early April. The countries which authorized four or more vaccines – thereby combining Chinese, Russian, European and American types – achieved much better results in general. Serbia, an upper-middle income country following this approach, had already given out almost 40 vaccine doses per 100 of its population in early April. Hungary, a high-income country, achieved almost as many.

The United Arab Emirates, the only country to have authorized five vaccine types so far, had the most successful vaccination campaign at almost 90 doses per 100 of its population behind Israel, which served as a model region for the Pfizer vaccine and is therefore excluded from the chart.