Abstract
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccinations play a main role in the immunization program of countries to decrease the numbers of COVID-19 related infected individuals and deaths. However, countries, after a certain share of people vaccinated against COVID-19 have to cope with vaccine hesitancy and resistance in population. One of the fundamental problems is the detection of the max share of people vaccinable between countries without the introduction of any rule that affects basic aspects of individual freedoms of people in public and private life. The study here confronts this problem with a global analysis based on N=150 countries, using relationships between socioeconomic, institutional and political variables, and levels of vaccination. Results reveal that the share of people vaccinated increases with the level of development (and democratization) of countries, achieving the maximum level of about 70%; beyond this level, the share of vaccination starts to decrease across countries. Moreover, findings reveal that governments with Monarchy and Parliamentary Monarchy have average share of people vaccinated higher than Mixed Executives. These main findings suggest that in developed and democratic countries the maximum level of vaccination has a physiological limit, but many Western (democratic) countries are applying restriction rules (e.g., green pass/vaccine passport) to overcome this max level reducing and regulating, at the same time, many aspects of public and private life of individuals. Discussion explains these sociopolitical phenomena with aspects of politics of fear, focused on deaths of COVID-19, and of strong leaders having domestic and international support that apply rules in contexts of social insecurity with consequential reduction of equity, trust and solidarity and increase of socioeconomic issues. All these results here could aid policymakers to prepare sustainable policy responses against COVID-19 in society without distressing basics of democracy with rules of autocratic systems that can generate economic and social deterioration, and problems for mental health and economic conditions of people in society.