Surely we have the capacity to make enough vaccines for everyone by now. It's just a matter of economics. Giving more boosters really shouldn't reduce supply, if there is money to make vaccines for everyone in the lower income countries, they will be made.
But, we could, at 12 billion doses a year already realizable, getting to 14+ isn't far fetched -- distribution and convincing people to take them would be much more challenging. I'm not which of distribution and cooperation is the hardest, but, manufacturing is certainly not the blocker.
These other articles seem to say that it's not feasible in the short term and have a better count that is nor just projections based on past capacity.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/health/andrew-pollard-booster...
https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-plan-to-break-the-vaccine...
Yes the factories have to be ramped up but that can be done quickly enough. If those low to middle income countries were offering big bucks for vaccines, the vaccine makers would have just put more resources on it.
The only reason it might make sense that we should stop boosting because it is taking them away from people who need them more, is if the vaccine makers made more than needed, or built more capacity than needed, simply because they didn't anticipate hesitancy.
It would be great if the US and other wealthy countries wanted to subsidize vaccines for poorer countries.... I mean, I'd vote for that. That just means we have less money, though, not fewer doses of vaccine.
(and just to be clear, I'm not saying we should overdo it if there is no point. I'm just saying the article and the position of the WHO is not logical)
With a constrained supply (from continual boosting), it is logical that the wealthy countries want to keep it for themselves rather than subsidize other countries. Hopefully they'll stop at 3 doses, as recommended, and then they can roll out to the poorer countries.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/04/health/andrew-pollard-booster...
https://www.barrons.com/articles/a-plan-to-break-the-vaccine...
I'm simply saying that using more boosters in wealthy countries in no way depletes the vaccine, or raises the prices for it, in poorer countries.
I mean, would you agree that wealthy people buying more television sets does not in any way reduce the ability of poorer people to buy television sets?
But this analogy sucks because a TV is a luxury purchase and there's no network effect whereby I become safer if everyone in the world has a TV.