Philip Bump: “To put it bluntly: The total number of vaccines secured by the United States is almost twice the number needed to vaccinate everyone, even after considering that most of the vaccines require two doses for full effectiveness.”
“Again, it’s understandable why the government would want to make sure that Americans were able to get a sufficient number of effective vaccines before pledging to share them with other countries. But that’s the other cloud hanging out there. The longer it takes to reach herd immunity globally, the more possible it is that a variant of the virus will emerge that renders the vaccines ineffective.”
“Hence the calls to be as generous as possible as soon as possible.”
