How vaccines are affecting Covid-19 outbreaks globally

Nearly six months after the first Covid-19 vaccines were approved for emergency use, Guardian analysis shows that the vast majority of the world is yet to see a substantial benefit.

Supply shortages, safety concerns, public apathy and slow rollouts have resulted in most countries still being reliant on onerous lockdowns and other quarantine measures to reduce the severity of their outbreaks.

Clear gaps have opened between the handful of countries where vaccination levels are high, those struggling to ramp up their programmes and the many, mostly poor countries that have received only a trickle of vaccine doses so far.

Mapping changes in death rates since 31 January against vaccination rates in each country gives a snapshot of the state of the race to vaccinate the world against the virus. Here is what it tells us.

default

Data

Vaccination rate data is sourced from Our World in Data and shows the total vaccinations in a particular country for every 100 people. Countries that have not recorded a vaccination rate to date have not been included.

Deaths data is from Johns Hopkins University. The change in deaths since 31 January is calculated by working out the percentage change in deaths between the two-week period to 31 January and the two-week period to 19 April.

Countries that do not yet have a documented vaccination rate are excluded. Countries with more than a 1,000% increase, and fewer than five deaths in the two weeks to 31 January, were excluded so that low baselines did not distort the international picture.

Lockdown stringency data is from the Oxford Covid-19 government response tracker. The change is calculated by comparing a country’s average stringency score in February to its average stringency score in April. A change of -10 or less was used to identify those countries that have opened up significantly in the last two months.