Vaccine race: is infection rates vs injections a better way to measure progress? 

Vaccine race: is infection rates vs injections a better way to measure progress? 

The data includes all countries with populations over 500,000, excluding China due to a lack of transparency over infection rates, according to Total Analysis.

In this race, then, Singapore is winning. Its epidemic is largely under control, with three new cases per 100,000 people reported over the last seven days. And it has vaccinated almost 920 people per 100,000 in the same period, or 306.5 times as many as have been infected.

Singapore is followed by Finland, the UAE, Greece, Puerto Rico and India, who have vaccinated between almost 30 and 14.4 times more people in the last week than have been infected with Covid-19.

At the other end of the scale are countries with spiralling infection rates but where vaccination campaigns have not yet begun.

These are mainly places edged out in the global scramble for vaccines, which has been dominated by the richer countries.

They include Montenegro, Lebanon, Colombia, Uruguay, Georgia, Tunisia, Eswatini and South Africa.

Montenegro is the worst hit country by this measure, reporting 461 cases per 100,000 people over the last seven days, and no vaccinations. Both Montenegro and Lebanon, with 431 cases per 100,000 in the last week, are currently battling a worse rate of infections than the UK and