The number of vaccine doses administered has been accelerating and we are now inoculating more than 1 million people per day. The chart below is a guess at how this is going to play out:
The line shows the average number of doses per day, with the acceleration slowing down over time and topping out at about 2.5 million per day. The numbers are the cumulative number of doses administered.
If we end up somewhere in this ballpark, we will have administered 400 million doses by July 1. That's 200 million people, or about 80% of the adult population of the country—assuming, of course, that 80% of the country wants the vaccine. That's well over the number needed to get the virus well under control and get the case count plummeting.
Don't take this as any kind of rigorous prediction. It's just to give you a rough idea of how the cumulative numbers add up given acceleration in the number of daily doses administered. The actual numbers will depend on how much vaccine is available and how much better we get at distributing it. Nonetheless, I think this is a fairly conservative guesstimate. By May we should start seeing real improvement, and by the end of June we should finally be in pretty good shape.
Assuming, of course, that our vaccines remain effective against whatever new variants show up . . .
Awesome! That means we have big 4th of July celebrations safely again.
This is what I've been expecting. I've been predicting huge July 4 celebrations for awhile.
I am saying Labor Day, to be safe.
Saw an estimate somewhere that 14 percent of Americans have covid antibodies. Don't know what that means in terms of resistance to severe disease, or willingness to get vaccine.
From the various press releases, Moderna and Pfizer have promised 100M doses each by the end of Q1 and Moderna has promised 100M more by the end of Q2 (Jul 1), where Pfizer says the second 100M doses will arrive by late July. So, I don't think 400M doses will be produced by Jul 1, as you have here. I see it leveling off at more like 2M/day, not 2.5M.
Also, J&J could make a real impact. They say they can deliver 100M doses by the end of Q2, but with a 1-dose regime. That's equiv. If true, then everyone can be vaccinated by July.
Johnson+Johnson just applied for an EUA yesterday afternoon. We'll soon have a third vaccine to use.
And one would hope a fourth before too long, also, the Oxford A-Z vaccine. Surely the government can't hold that one off much longer...
And shows an S-curve ramp, which is what would be expected, too.
Maybe. A recent study out of Manaus, Brazil, where the infection rate is very high, is not so promising. It seems that even as more and more people are being infected, the virus is just finding new, previously untouched subpopulations to infect.
We are all Witnesses.
(Harrison Ford got jobbed out of an Oscar by the way. Also, with Cicely Tyson, Hal Holbrook, Cloris Leachman, & Christopher Plummer all perishing in the last two weeks, we must protect Harrison Ford (& Betty White).)
That's possible, although my reading suggests we're not really sure what's happening in Manaus, and one possibility is that the estimated infection rate in the first half of 2020 was wrong (and that the actual number wasn't as high as thought).
I think that estimate application range must only include the basic covid-19 virus we dealt with last year. If the variants the have been recently identified become more prevalent that percentage of people that need to be vaccinated in order for herd immunity to occur will also increase proportionally to the increase in dominant variant transmissibility rate. We might end up needing 80% of people vaccinated.
For example because of the transmission rate of measles the herd immunity percentage needed is over 90%.
Of significant note, though is the fact that only ~20% of the US population is over 60 years old. so ~60 million people. They will have mostly have had at least their first dose by mid-March, so deaths are going to *plummet* relative to case counts much sooner than summer.
And FWIW, seniors are the least vaccine-averse group.
I think that's already happening. There was a holiday rise in cases, but no corresponding rise in deaths in late January. Many deaths, but not as many as might have been expected from all the cases.
That chart makes a lot of sense. Thanks.
I will await the release of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s, homeopathic medicine protocol as public health advisor to his cousin Maria Shriver's son-in-law's campaign for governor of California in the impending recall of Gavin Newsom.
Chris Pratt 2022: Republican for California Governor. Get the worst of the Kennedys AND the worst of the Schwarzeneggers.
They're starting to vaccinate over-65s here.
Alas, still leaves me out. I'm not even Madonna's age yet, and with any luck I never will be.
Here's hoping.
***If we end up somewhere in this ballpark, we will have administered 400 million doses by July 1. That's 200 million people, or about 80% of the adult population of the country***
The number should actually be higher than that given that by mid year, there will still be plenty of people who haven't yet received their second jab of Pfizer/Moderna. So, let's call it 220 million. Given the fact that even a single jab of Pfizer/Moderna provides a measure of protection plus the reality that millions of others will have acquired natural immunity via a covid infection, we could truly be in in the home stretch by mid summer. (Also, as someone mentioned above, early prioritization of the elderly means deaths should have plummeted by then).