Much has been made, perhaps unjustly, about vaccine hesitancy in poorer nations. South Africa delayed coronavirus vaccine shipments in November just ahead of the omicron explosion, with resistance cited as one factor. But experts including Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told me that while particular countries may face a relative excess of vaccine hesitancy regardless of their economic strata, there is no evidence that reluctance is any greater on average in the developing world than in the United States or Europe. They are, however, combating resistance later on in the pandemic due to massive delays in access, and are doing it with fewer resources than richer nations that have funded expensive marketing and mobilization campaigns and publicity stunts.
Vaccine distribution is creating a new kind of vaccine inequality
