You may be right, but it likely won't be due to vaccine inadequacy. People declining to get vaccinated already is the biggest roadblock to herd immunity in some countries. Those who are vaccinated and still get infected are much more likely to have mild to moderate cases. Those cases are easy to deal with. Running out of ICU beds, oxygen, and ventilators for the severely infected aren't.
For other places (like Israel), it's more spreadable variants showing that one needs to get above the bare minimum for herd immunity.
And for the rest of the world, it's a matter of producing and distributing enough vaccines.
Here's a real-world example of what happens within a few weeks of a new spike infecting vaccinated hospital workers in a country that has a low vaccination rate:
https://jakartaglobe.id/news/sinovac-vaccine-protects-health-workers-from-severe-covid19-in-deltahit-kudusAs of June 17, 6,085 health workers and health support personnel in Kudus had been vaccinated with the first dose, and 5,888 people had received the second dose.
“Almost 100 percent of the health workers in Kudus, amounting to around 6,000 people, have received the first and second doses of vaccination," Badai said.
"Of this number, only 308 health workers were exposed or around 5.1 percent of the total number of health workers. Most of them have recovered and have started working again," he said.
Abdul Aziz Achyar, the director of Kudus's dr. Loekmono Hadi Regional General Hospital, said a total of 153 health workers at the hospital confirmed to have Covid-19. Only 11 people, or 7.1 percent, needed hospitalization. The other 86 (56 percent) used to be in self-isolation but now ready to work, following the rest of their colleagues who had recovered earlier.So, where will the vaccines come from?
China's average domestic doses is above 20 million per day and India's has passed 8 million. That's over half the doses in administered in the world. At current rates, China will be solidly inside herd immunity levels in early September and can export 20 million more doses per day. As the current wave abates, India will likely return to filling orders for export, but is unlikely to accept any larger commitments until a significantly higher percentage of it's population is vaccinated.
The US has a sufficient amount on hand to finish vaccinating everyone who suddenly realizes that vaccination is a good thing, so can shift the bulk of it's production to exports.
Technology sharing arrangements for Astra Zeneca, some of the Chinese vaccines, and the Russian Sputnik 5 are increasing the number of production points around the world. The US did commit to joining in these programs, but RNA vaccines are more challenging to produce, so those types won't gain new production as fast.
Currently, there are over 200 vaccines for Covid-19 in development, ranging from "Let's figure out how to make this" to "We're finishing Phase 3 and need to apply for emergency approval." If one of those ends up with good results, few side effects, and is faster, easier, and cheaper to produce, it could be a game changer. If not, let's look at just the India and China numbers.
If we decide to stick the numbers at a total of 28 million (20 for China, 8 for India), which is very conservative and we also err on the conservative side by ignoring all current exports, all other production (and assume 2 doses is going to be the standard) and that China will need everything until the end of September for domestic, how good/bad is that?
Let's make it simpler.
India will need more time to catch up, so we can simplify further with 20 million doses per day from China.
Out of world of 7.7 (give or take) humans, how big of an impact can 20 million doses make? That's the approximate equivalent of "only" 10 million fully vaccinated people per day.
Or, the equivalent of 300 million fully vaccinated people per month.
Or the equivalent of 3.6 billion fully vaccinated people per year. (One more simplification - pretend NO ONE on Earth was vaccinated on or before September 30, 2021, so we need to vaccinate everybody.)
So, for China to get the Earth to herd immunity by itself starting from NO ONE anywhere vaccinated (no other vaccine producers) while ignoring the amount already being exported per day and the possibility of ramping up production, it would take about 2 years to reach herd immunity from when these exports being -So, October 1, 2023.
Now let's look at reality.
Over 800 million people worldwide are already fully vaccinated and over 900 million are partially vaccinated. That's 2.5 billion fewer doses needed.
China is already making more than 20 million doses per day and exporting the excess. India will be back in the export game soon (admittedly at temporarily reduced levels). Both China and India will continue to ramp up production. The US can now export nearly all the vaccines it produces. Other countries that either produce their own or that have acquired the technology will likely first focus on their own populations, but then will shift to export. Worldwide, total production is increasing and this can easily exceed 50 million doses (equivalent to 25 million fully vaccinated people) per day within a few more months. That's a global capacity of fully immunize 9 billion people.
The world has the production capacity. The world has the distribution capacity. There's zero reason (other than some new super-variant, people believing stupid conspiracy theories, or local wars getting in the way) for every country in the world to get to 85+% vaccination rates of their adult populations long before June 28, 2022. All it takes is the political will to achieve the goal.
This is a simple test. If all nations can set aside any disputes over vaccine production and distribution for the next 12 months, this will be easy. If some countries choose to play political games, the blood will be on the hands of the leaders who stood in the way.