More than 4.2 Million People in the U.S. Have Gotten a Covid-19 Vaccine
By The New York Times
More than 4.2 million people in the United States have received a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, far short of the goal federal officials set to give at least 20 million people their first shots before the end of December.
The federal government said Saturday that it had delivered more than 13 million doses to states, territories and federal agencies. The shipments, which came after a record-setting race to develop, study and approve a vaccine, have marked a turning point in the pandemic at a time when deaths and cases continue to set records.
But federal health officials recently acknowledged that the vaccine rollout had had a slower-than-expected start and said they did not have a clear understanding as to why only a small portion of the doses shipped across the nation had made it into arms.
The numbers reflect a national rollout of first doses that began in December — the first step toward protecting residents from a virus that continues to devastate the country.
Tracking the Coronavirus
Detailed news feed from Bloomberg
More Than 12.3 Million Shots Given: Covid-19 Vaccine Tracker
The U.S. has administered 4.33 million doses; Europe’s rollout begins
Updated:
The R&D Timeline
Bloomberg is tracking the development of nine of the globe’s most promising vaccines. A total of seven vaccines are now available for public use, in limited quantities, in dozens of countries.
Nations have poured billions of dollars into developing new vaccine technologies, testing them in thousands of volunteers, scaling up manufacturing, and then bringing them to market in record time.
None of these shots, on its own, is enough to inoculate a global population of some 7.8 billion people. But together they represent humanity’s best chance of ending a scourge that has claimed more than 1.8 million lives and triggered global economic calamity.
Vaccine Contracts
Desperate for relief from the worst pandemic in a century, countries have struck deals to secure vaccine access. By our count, 8.25 billion doses have already been set aside.
That would be enough to cover more than half the world’s population (most vaccines use two doses), if the shots were distributed evenly. That, however, hasn’t happened. Rich countries have accumulated extensive supply deals, and ultra-cold storage requirements make some vaccines difficult to deliver to far-flung places. Some countries may have to wait until 2022 or later before supplies are widely available.
Governors are being WAY too precious about who gets this vaccine and we’re going to end up with millions of doses of expired vaccines if states don’t get serious about getting this out the door. These numbers are dangerously bad https://t.co/9VBv9nSEkrpic.twitter.com/RciNui1kSn
Almost as soon as the coronavirus arrived in the United States, public-health officials understood quite precisely the basic building blocks of a proper response: test, trace, isolate — in the three-beat mantra of those early months. There were, along the way, misunderstandings and miscalculations — about surface versus aerosol transmission, about mask-wearing, about the relative safety of outdoor socializing, among others. But the basic path was abundantly clear, as nearly every epidemiologist kept screaming, and yet the country failed spectacularly to walk down it. . .
How badly are we doing?
. . . As a whole, the country has administered barely 10 percent of even the first doses allotted — and 20 million (identical) doses are being reserved for a second shot. . .
NOTE: Though refrigeration capacity varies from location to location, vaccines are only cleared for 30 days of storage in the most common units (including those in which they have been shipped).
States have been rushing to build out their storage capacity, but have been warned of monthslong waits for ultracold freezers that could extend shelf life to about six months. That means that, in many places, this first batch of vaccine is set to expire in late January, around the time Joe Biden, who has been criticizing the rollout and promising to accelerate it, is set to take office. Presumably, the American pace will accelerate somewhat even before then. But on the current pace, by that point about 6 million Americans — perhaps 10 million — would have been vaccinated. And, depending on local bureaucracy and storage capacity, perhaps many million doses will be set to expire.
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