Everything You Wanted To Know About COVID-19 Vaccines In Five Pictures
'09.12.2020'
Lyudmila Balabay
The race to create a vaccine against COVID-19, which has included dozens of companies and many countries around the world, is nearing completion. Immunization of Americans is promised to begin this year, and the vaccine will be massively available to residents of most countries of the world in the middle of next year. But it is not yet clear which drug will be used, as several candidates have achieved success.
Fearing being left out of business and wanting to get drugs as early as possible, many countries have pre-orders for vaccines even from companies that have not yet completed studies. The most popular among all the currently announced candidates was the drug of the British company AstraZeneca, it has pre-ordered 3,2 billion doses.
This drug accounts for over 30% of pre-orders among the 10 most popular potential vaccines. In second place is the American NovaVax (14% or 1,4 billion pre-order doses). Russian Sputnik V has received pre-orders for 500 million doses - 5% of the total orders of the 10 most popular vaccine candidates.
Moreover, of all vaccines, the effectiveness of which can already be assessed, the drug from AstraZeneca is the least effective, but also the cheapest. One dose will cost $ 3-4. This is significantly lower than the cost of the Moderna vaccine, which has shown 100% effectiveness against severe forms of COVID-19, one dose of this vaccine will cost at least $ 32.
What vaccines did the US government pre-order?
The USA decided to order a little bit of everything, but the cheapest and least efficient AstraZeneca still takes the lead.
Here is the data in absolute numbers.
That is, the States already pre-ordered 1,01 billion vaccines... And if all companies succeed, there will be a large surplus of unused drugs in the country. With two doses, 328 million doses are needed to vaccinate each of the 656 million people in the United States, and almost double that is pre-ordered. And if we consider that not all vaccines can be used for children and the elderly, then the American stock can be huge. Keep in mind, however, that some vaccine candidates may be ineffective and will be canceled in advance. Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are currently in the FDA approval process in the US. Decisions on them are promised to be made on December 10 and 17, respectively.
