If the wealth that billionaires achieved during the pandemic period was taxed at least once in 99%, the amount would be enough to vaccinate every adult on the planet. And the wealthiest would still be left with about 47 billion euros more than they had before the pandemic.

According to the portal "Multinews", the calculations were made by an analysis of several groups that advocate for economic equality (Oxfam, Fight Inequality Alliance, Institute for Policy Studies and the Patriotic Millionaires), cited by The Guardian newspaper.

This hypothetical one-time tax on the world's 2,690 billionaires would also give about 17,000 euros to all the workers who have become unemployed.

And yet the wealthiest would be left with about 47 billion more than they had before the pandemic.

Morris Pearl, former head of BlackRock, the world's largest asset manager, argued that countries can no longer afford "the increasing global wealth of billionaires, as millions of people have lost their lives and livelihoods."

Pearl, who is now president of the group Patriotic Millionaires, which brings together wealthy people who advocate higher wealth taxes, said that governments have historically used wealth taxes after crises to help rebuild communities.

The Guardian cites the first world war as an example, where the US increased taxes on the richest people to 67%.

"Our economies are choking on these accumulated resources that could be serving a much greater purpose," Pearl argued. "Billionaires need to disburse that amount of money - and governments need to do that by taxing their wealth."

The analysis used data from the financial magazine Forbes, which revealed that billionaires increased their fortunes by 4.6 trillion euros from March 18, 2020 to July 31, 2021. The increase in these 17 months was greater than the roughly 4.5 trillion earned in 15 years from 2006 to 2020 , concludes the same analysis.

The study estimated that each dose of covid-19 vaccine costs about €6 on average, concluding that two doses for 5 billion adults would cost about €60 billion.

Recall that only 1.2% of people in poor countries received the first dose.

In an unprecedented move, four institutions, including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Health Organization (WHO), warned last month that global economic recovery will be affected if there is no equality in vaccine distribution.