Covid-19: 8 000 planes to transport the vaccine

Major pharmaceutical companies are frantically competing to develop a vaccine against covid-19. Once the right formula is found and widely produced, distribution will be the next challenge.

Estimates issued by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) indicate that 8 000 cargo planes will be needed to ensure that every-one out of the 7.8 billion people around the world, receives a dose of the vaccine. IATA estimates that nearly half of the doses and medical equipment will be transported by land.

The vaccine's distribution will lead to a revival of activity in two sectors severely impacted by the pandemic: the aeronautics industry and air transport. The IATA has estimated that airlines will have lost 84.3 bil-lion USD in 2020. The turnover of the aforementioned sectors is ex-pected to drop by 50% to 419 billion USD in the same year.

In 2021, the situation of airlines should improve with losses limited to 15.8 billion USD and a turnover growth of 598 billion USD.

The insurance industry is likely to benefit from the production and transportation of the vaccine. In June 2020, The Lloyd's of London has already approved the establishment of a syndicate that would focus on the risk of storage and transport of Covid-19 vaccine to developing countries in June 2020.

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