Vaccination is going well in Chile. Why not its neighbours?

EACH DAY this week some 100,000 Chileans aged 60 to 64 turned up to get their inoculation against covid-19. Having vaccinated nearly 20% of its adults, the sixth-best performance in the world, Chile is on track to meet its target of covering 80% of its 19m people by June 30th. After starting with health workers, the jabs are being applied in strict descending order of age, a different year each day, and to teachers, too.

This swift and orderly programme contrasts with the rest of Latin America. In vaccination as in other matters, the region displays its divisions, inequalities and problems of governance. In this case, sadly, they will cost lives. Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela and several smaller countries have barely started jabbing. Mexico, with 2% of its people vaccinated on March 1st, is below the world average of 3.5%. In Brazil (4%) vaccination trails behind the new P.1 variant of the virus, which spreads faster than the original and seems to disregard prior natural immunity. This week the health secretaries of Brazil’s 27 state governments declared that the country is suffering “the worst moment” of the pandemic.

The slow roll-out is largely because of the worldwide shortage of vaccines, especially from Western drug firms whose supplies have gone mainly to their home markets. Argentina, Brazil and Mexico plan to...