Having vaccinated nearly a quarter of its 19 million people with at least one dose, Chile’s campaign against COVID-19 is outpacing much of the rest of the world’s.
The vaccination drive, which is being hailed as a success in Chile and internationally, is moving fast. In the past three weeks, Chile administered 44.31 doses per 100 people. The European Union, by contrast, only managed 12.97.
However the numbers don’t tell the full story. The official data is being presented as if all vaccines are equally effective. That is not the case. Chile has used two vaccines – CoronaVac and Pfizer/BioNTech. The bulk of the doses administered are CoronaVac, which is produced in China. Recent studies show that CoronaVac offers only 50% effective protection against infection. In other words, out of 100 people vaccinated with two doses of CoronaVac, half of them remain at risk to be infected by the virus.
