Goldman Expects Many in U.S. and Europe Vaccinated by Mid-2021

(Bloomberg) -- Goldman Sachs Group Inc. expects large swathes of the public across major developed economies to receive a vaccine against the coronavirus by the middle of next year, driving a “sharp pickup” in global growth.

The bank’s economists predict that half the U.K. public will be vaccinated in March, with the U.S. and Canada reaching that threshold a month later. The European Union, Japan and Australia are due to follow in May.

“We expect large shares of the population to be vaccinated” toward the end of the second quarter, economists Daan Struyven and Sid Bhushan wrote in a report to clients. With production increasing, the vaccination rate is set to exceed 70% in the autumn.

The best hopes for ending the pandemic, which has sunk the global economy into its deepest contraction since the Great Depression, rest on deployment of a vaccine.

While experimental shots have produced positive trial results, drug makers and governments face logistical hurdles to successfully vaccinate hundreds of millions of people around the world.

Should some of the vaccines in development not prove successful, supply -- particularly in the EU -- would rise more slowly, the economists wrote.

©2020 Bloomberg L.P.