Vaccine distribution still has the feel of a zero-sum game. Five days after Israel received 700,000 doses of the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine, Pfizer told other non-U.S. customers that it would cut supplies while it briefly closed a facility in Belgium.

The disparity in vaccine allocation is the product of a company struggling to apportion doses while demand far exceeds supply. Stephanie Baker and Cynthia Koons reported for Bloomberg Businessweek that the company has determined how many doses a country gets through an opaque process that appears to involve a mix of order size, position in the queue, production forecasts, calls from world leaders, and of course the desire to make a profit.

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