COVID-19 vaccine inequality: A global perspective

[...]while the distribution of vaccines was slightly less severe between continents (0.61), the inequality within continents was very severe. [...]allocating COVID-19 vaccines to low-and middle-income countries is considered a charity/donation, and high-income countries refuse to support sharing of their vaccine technology. The potential positive global externality could be lower probabilities of emerging potential escape COVID-19 variants and decreasing the number of new cases worldwide. 1 Center for Value-Based Care Research, Cleveland Clinic, Cleveland, Ohio, USA 2 Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences (IASBS), Zanjan, Iran 4 Department of Economics, Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, University of Mazandaran, Babolsar, Iran 5 Department of Public Health Policy and Management, School of Global Public Health, New York University, New York, New York, USA 6 Matheson Center for Health Care Studies, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 7 Department of Population Health Sciences, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA 8 Department of Economics, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA