In the global race for a COVID-19 vaccine, countries are making huge gambles in the hopes of an eventual payoff down the road. With Russia announcing its approval of a coronavirus vaccine this month, national governments are working harder than ever to ensure that their citizens will be among the first to receive a dose. Its a chaotic geopolitical scramble with extremely high stakes.

In total, more than 5 billion vaccine doses have been preordered around the world, according to slightly different strategies: 700 million doses for the United States, betting on the most candidates; 700 million doses for the European Union, depending on the strength of vaccines created by regional companies; and a rush for the most promising vaccines for countries where the pandemic is taking its greatest toll, such as Brazil.

The fierce competition to secure vaccine doses began to escalate in May, when Paul Hudson , director of the French laboratory Sanofi, said the United States would be entitled to the largest preorders for the companys SARS-CoV-2 vaccine and that the country would receive them days or even weeks ahead of the rest of the world.

Hudsons comments caused an outcry in France, and the director quickly backtracked but the damage was done. He had lifted the veil on the dealings, which, since the beginning of the pandemic, have consumed governments, organizations and laboratories rushing to put together the staggering number of preorders.

The United States has developed an all-out strategy, with the Trump administration spending billions of dollars to secure preorders from multiple labs: $955 million for Moderna , whose vaccine is already in phase 3 clinical trials; $456 million for Johnson & Johnson; more than $1 billion for AstraZeneca; and $2.1 billion for GlaxoSmithKline and Sanofi , for a potential order of 100 million doses from the two European labs.