Declaration of competing interest The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Gavin Yamey reports a relationship with Carnegie Corporation of New York for a study on ways to achieve equitable pandemic vaccine distribution, that includes: funding grants. Gavin Yamey reports a relationship with Gates Foundation to work with donors and governments on translating the key findings of the 3rd report of the Lancet Commission on Investing in Health (Global health 2050, see https://globalhealth2050.org/) into policy—this includes work on vaccine scale-up, that includes: funding grants. Gavin Yamey reports a relationship with COVID-19 Vaccine Development Taskforce hosted by the World Bank and participated as an unpaid academic adviser in the consultation process that led to the launch of COVAX that includes: technical advisory group membership. Gavin Yamey reports a relationship with COVAX that includes: technical advisory group membership. Chris Beyrer reports a relationship with COVID-19 Vaccine Prevention Network (CoVPN) of the NIH that includes: Senior Scientific Liaison. Chris Beyrer reports a relationship with HIV Vaccine Trials Network that includes: governance committee membership. He is Affiliate Faculty of the Duke Human Vaccine Institute. GY has received past grant funding from WHO; Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance; and the Gates Foundation, all of whom support vaccination. He is a funding member of Amnesty International, which, during the COVID-19 pandemic, was one of the members of the People’s Vaccine Alliance.