{"id":1395,"date":"2021-05-24T07:12:41","date_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:12:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1395"},"modified":"2021-05-24T07:12:41","modified_gmt":"2021-05-24T11:12:41","slug":"why-are-so-few-russians-vaccinated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1395","title":{"rendered":"Why are so few Russians vaccinated?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Question:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0I was looking at<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/covid-vaccinations\" target=\"_blank\"> vaccination rates across countries<\/a> and noticed that very little Russia&#8217;s population is vaccinated.\u00a0 Given how early Russia was to develop its vaccine, I was surprised.\u00a0 Why are so few Russians vaccinated?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Answer:<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0According to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/covid-vaccinations\" target=\"_blank\">OurWorldinData<\/a>, only 7.6% of Russians have been fully vaccinated, and at least 73 countries have higher vaccination rates\u00a0<strong>(Figure)<\/strong>.\u00a0 Given how early Russia was to introduce its Sputnik V vaccine (see <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/?p=1312\" target=\"_blank\">Q&amp;A of 4\/20\/21<\/a>), I was also surprised to see how lagging its vaccination efforts\u00a0have been.\u00a0 There are many potential reasons for this slow roll-out, including issues related to <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/world-europe-56250456\" target=\"_blank\">vaccine acceptance\/hesitancy<\/a>.\u00a0 One challenge has implications not only for Russia but for the world&#8211; reported issues with vaccine manufacturing.\u00a0 According to Reuters, as of 12\u00a0May 2021, Russia had <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/big-promises-few-doses-why-russias-struggling-make-sputnik-v-doses-2021-05-14\/\" target=\"_blank\">produced just 33 million total vaccines<\/a> (e.g. 66 million doses) and exported fewer than 15 million vaccines.\u00a0 For comparison, Pfizer makes <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/data.cdc.gov\/Vaccinations\/National-Weekly-Pfizer-Allocations\/sxbq-3sid\" target=\"_blank\">>5 million vaccines\/week<\/a>\u00a0(e.g. >10 million doses) for the US alone.\u00a0 As further <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/big-promises-few-doses-why-russias-struggling-make-sputnik-v-doses-2021-05-14\/\" target=\"_blank\">described by Reuters<\/a>, Sputnik&#8217;s manufacturing challenges are many and highlight multiple difficulties, including and beyond supplies and equipment. And since Sputnik is composed of two different types of adenovirus vectors, the manufacturing process is even more complex.\u00a0 As the CEO of the Russian pharmaceutical company\u00a0Pharmasyntez <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/business\/healthcare-pharmaceuticals\/big-promises-few-doses-why-russias-struggling-make-sputnik-v-doses-2021-05-14\/\" target=\"_blank\">told\u00a0Reuters<\/a>,&#8221;We can buy equipment, we can build plants. But in biotechnology, competent people [are] the most important thing. And there are not very many of them.&#8221;\u00a0 Given the role that Russia has been playing in vaccine diplomacy, these reported manufacturing set-backs could have major implications for vaccination supply in numerous countries around the world.\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Figure. Proportion of population vaccinated by country <\/strong>(from <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/ourworldindata.org\/covid-vaccinations\" target=\"_blank\">OurWorldInData<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"723\" height=\"478\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?resize=723%2C478&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1396\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?resize=1024%2C677&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?resize=300%2C198&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?resize=768%2C508&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?resize=1536%2C1015&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?w=1593&amp;ssl=1 1593w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?w=1446&amp;ssl=1 1446w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 723px) 100vw, 723px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Question:\u00a0I was looking at vaccination rates across countries and noticed that very little Russia&#8217;s population is vaccinated.\u00a0 Given how early Russia was to develop its vaccine, I was surprised.\u00a0 Why are so few Russians vaccinated? Answer:\u00a0According to OurWorldinData, only 7.6% of Russians have been fully vaccinated, and at least 73 countries have higher vaccination rates\u00a0(Figure).\u00a0 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1396,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[46,64],"tags":[185,199],"class_list":["post-1395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trends","category-vaccines","tag-russia","tag-sputnikv","fallback-thumbnail"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/covidqanda.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/05\/image-14.png?fit=1593%2C1053&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1395"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1397,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1395\/revisions\/1397"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/covidqanda.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}