Stockpiling is the main cause of vaccine inequity, not a lack of manufacturing – we already have more than enough doses

Paul Blake: And is it a question of problems with production or with making the vaccines? Or is this an issue with doses being sort of held in surplus and not being made available to people who need them in other locations? And I guess if it's about that second point, like excess doses, where are they and why aren't they being released? Raka Banerjee: So a big part of the problem is that many wealthy countries actually pre-ordered far more vaccine doses than they even needed to vaccinate their populations. Looking at data coming from Duke University, just for example, the US paid for enough vaccines for twice its population, the UK paid for enough for four times its population, and Canada for five times its population. So even though the world will have created 11 billion total doses by the end of this year, almost 9.9 billion of those doses have already been promised to higher and upper middle-income countries. Paul Blake: And so what's happening now in countries where the vaccine supply exceeds the demand for the vaccine? Raka Banerjee: Well, some countries have started to donate some of their excess supply, but it's hard to find data on exactly what's happening. Last month, the G7 agreed to donate 1 billion COVID-19 doses to poorer countries, so that's a start. But given that the World Health Organization has stated that vaccinating most of the world's population will take 11 billion doses, a lot of people have felt that this contribution was not nearly as substantial enough to make the difference that we need to actually stop the pandemic.