Access to vaccines determines economic trajectory, warns IMF

WASHINGTON - The economic trajectory of each country has become more determined by their access to Covid vaccines, the IMF warned in the report.

Advanced economies have largely rolled out vaccines at a rapid rate, while a large proportion of emerging market and developing economies have struggled to secure enough vaccine supply to distribute among their populations.

These disparities in vaccine allocation has resulted in the global economic recovery “split[ting] into two blocs: those that can look forward to further normalisation of activity later this year (almost all advanced economies) and those that will still face resurgent infections and rising Covid death tolls” the IMF said.

Gita Gopinath, the IMF’s chief economist, said: “growth prospects for advanced economies this year have improved by 0.5 percentage points, but this is offset exactly by a downward revision for emerging market and developing economies driven by a significant downgrade for emerging Asia.”

The Fund called on countries that had procured excess doses – mostly rich economies – to donate vaccines to nations with low supply levels.

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