Here’s when vaccines will trigger global growth next year, says Goldman Sachs

 The world's advanced economies expect a vaccine to drop by mid December – that should also mean the start of the road to economic recovery in 2021, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.

Considering the data around immunisation timelines, some of which is uncertain, the analysts expect "widespread immunisation should drive a sharp pickup in global growth starting in Q2."

Analysts Daan Struyven and Sid Bhushan examined vaccine-related data to forecast the speed and challenges that large advanced economies – the UK, US, Canada, Japan, Australia and the European Union – might face when rolling out a vaccination programme. Their analysis considered global vaccine production, country vaccine supply, vaccine distribution capacity and country monthly vaccinations.

For both the US and Canada, vaccinations are expected to be initially scarce but supply should exceed demand by April.

The analysts say the UK is expected to vaccinate 50% of its population in March with the US and Canada following in April. They forecast that the EU, Japan, and Australia would reach this 50% threshold in May.

The US investment bank’s economic research, “Vaccinating the Population: A Timeline”, comes as doubts have surfaced surrounding one of the main vaccine candidates. The Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which had announced on 23 November that under one of its dosing regimens it has a 90% efficacy rate, has faced heightened scrutiny after revelations that the half dose given during trials was a result of errors as well as the age groups of volunteers.

The UK government has asked the regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, to assess the vaccine for approval.

“The medium-run effects of the various vaccine candidates, their impact on transmission, vaccine supply, and especially vaccine demand remain quite uncertain and imply that risks are skewed to a later timeline,” the analysts noted in their November 26 note.

If two of the vaccines – AstraZenenca and Johnson & Johnson’s – do not succeed, vaccinations will be slower in Europe, a region that relies more on these developers, the analysts said.

https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/heres-when-vaccines-will-trigger-global-growth-next-year-says-goldman-sachs-20201130