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A shift urged in global vaccination strategy: Health organizations again seek to prioritize at-risk populations for Covid shots.
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Global health organizations are considering changing their Covid-19 vaccination pledges — a move that could leave millions of people without first shots as countries reprioritize at-risk groups in the coming months, according to four people familiar with the matter.
In June 2021, the World Health Organization initially proposed that 70 percent of the world population be vaccinated by mid-2022 to protect against new variants and help ensure people in poorer countries had equal access to the shot. But 47 countries still have inoculation rates below 20 percent.
Now, many health organizations involved in the global vaccination effort aim to immunize 90 percent of vulnerable populations in every country — a move that seems to undercut the WHO’s 70 percent target.
A change in strategy would mark a significant turn in the global pandemic response. It comes as the Omicron subvariant BA.2 is spreading across the world and Congress debates how much to spend on the Biden administration’s world vaccination campaign.
“I don’t think there’s so much a shift of thinking on 70 percent so much as it is a recognition of failure,” said Gayle Smith, the CEO of the ONE Campaign and the former coordinator for the State Department’s global Covid-19 response. “The 70 percent target is still smart. But the practical reality is that there are not going to be sufficient vaccines plus the resources that are necessary to deliver them to get to 70 percent at the same pace that we’ve been able to do in wealthier countries.”
Prioritizing vulnerable populations — health care workers, elderly individuals and those with comorbidities — could undermine the global push to prevent variants if it reduces the total number of vaccinated people, some experts said. But facing the reality that the 70-percent-vaccination goal by mid-2022 is virtually doomed, some health groups working on the global vaccination effort are focusing on letting countries set targets according to their abilities and advising them to first target vulnerable populations. ...
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