22 things we think will happen in 2022
Covid-19
20 percent of US children between 6 months and 5 years old will have received at least one Covid vaccine by year’s end (65 percent)
Vaccine makers are busy testing the safety and efficacy of their shots in children under 5. Pfizer/BioNTech is furthest along, with Phase 2/3 trials currently running that may yield initial data within the next month. Of course, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will still need to issue an approval before shots can go into arms, but Pfizer/BioNTech is already saying it expects to deliver the doses by April 2022.
Dr. Anthony Fauci seems to think a spring vaccination rollout is doable. “Hopefully within a reasonably short period of time, likely the beginning of next year in 2022, in the first quarter of 2022, it will be available to them,” he said, referring to kids under 5.
That said, according to polling from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 30 percent of parents with kids under 5 say they will “definitely not” vaccinate the kids. As of this writing, only about 17 percent of kids aged 5-11 have gotten at least one dose. When it comes to even younger kids, the hesitation may be more pronounced as some parents choose to “wait and see” about side effects; polling suggests that parents become more hesitant about getting their kids the Covid vaccine the younger the children are. So, although I think there’s a decent chance that 20 percent of kids between 6 months and 5 years old will have gotten at least one shot if we give the “wait and see” crowd until the end of 2022, I’m not going to bet on a higher percentage. —SS
The WHO will designate another variant of concern by year’s end (75 percent)
I really hope I’m wrong on this one. But I fear a new variant of concern will appear on the WHO’s list, for a simple reason: Between rich countries hoarding doses and some populations showing hesitancy to get immunized, we’re not vaccinating the globe fast enough to starve the virus of opportunities to mutate into something new and serious. In low-income countries, only 7.3 percent of people have received at least one dose.
Within the past year, five variants of concern have made it onto the WHO’s list. I don’t have high hopes that we’ll go all of 2022 without adding at least one more to that sad litany. —SS
12 billion shots will be given out against Covid-19 globally by November 2022 … (80 percent)
The global vaccine rollout has not been as good as was hoped for, or as good as it needs to be to prevent the emergence of new variants. But compared to what the world was capable of even a few decades ago, it has been pretty impressive. It is about one year since the first countries issued approval for vaccines developed against Covid-19, and already more than 8.5 billion doses have been administered. If that rate continued into next year, the world would easily hit 12 billion shots given out, or enough for every person over 20 to get two shots.
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22824620/predicting-midterms-covid-roe-wade-oscars-2022?fbclid=IwAR13O7QLKwHpUZ8UuVBqb4OywBJT9vTEi7SAH4i0mv2h2Nbh01jOgjBUl7g