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Weekend Vaccination Rates in the United States

Published on 31 Comments on Weekend Vaccination Rates in the United States

We remain on the same upward trajectory we've followed since the beginning of February:

We have vaccinated about 90 million people so far. Another 30 million have already been infected with COVID-19, and epidemiologists estimate that there may be yet another 30 million who have been infected but never knew it. That's 150 million people who have some level of immunity to the virus. By the end of April that should be up to 230 million or so, which might be virtually every adult who's willing to be vaccinated. After that it's mostly a matter of vaccinating children.

That's still a ways off, and it's not clear how much danger it represents. The same is true of all the variants currently circulating. Nonetheless, it seems likely that by the end of June things will be mostly back to normal.

Except, of course, for the fact that the rest of the world will still have plenty of COVID-19 cases. We'll never be completely safe until the entire world is vaccinated, and even at that point the virus is likely to be endemic in the human population. It's possible that annual COVID-19 shots will become as routine as annual flu shots.

31 thoughts on “Weekend Vaccination Rates in the United States”

  1. rick_jones

    We remain on the same upward trajectory we've followed since the beginning of February

    And Kevin continues to place/base his trend line in Pollyanna fashion on the peaks.

    1. Jerry O'Brien

      You know, the headline is "Weekend Vaccination Rates", and that's where the peaks are. Anyway, I think there's no reason to worry about the trend. It's a good high rate now, and it's common sense that it can't just keep going up. It will level off at some practical limit, then it will drop off when there are fewer people left to vaccinate.

      1. rick_jones

        Alas, were I and my spreadsheets in contact with one another, I might have charted. Thiugh the task would be easier if Kevin linked more.

  2. Special Newb

    Once we hit that willing population (May) I have zero issue with paying J&J, Pfizer and Moderna for shots and shipping them to mexico, canada and the carribean. Then we ship to S. America except Venezuela and Brazil (who wont accept our help).

    We suffered the worst outbreak so we have the most need but then I am fine with vaccinating the western hemisphere on our dime. And even Astrazeneca's is more effective than the Chinese one.

    1. HokieAnnie

      I'd be totally on board with such a program, maybe even communicating to Venezuela & Brazil that they could have vaccines in return for better behavior on human rights.

        1. HokieAnnie

          We already have optics because the GQP will always, always find something to crab about. Might as well ignore the petulant children and do the right thing.

  3. Joseph Harbin

    Kevin has consistently been selling the idea that the US coronavirus response has been pretty good, all things considered. One example: "It’s fashionable to pretend that the US response to COVID-19 has been disastrously, unconscionably bad, but that’s really not true." I recall another time he said Trump's actions were maybe responsible for no more than 5% or !0% of all Covid deaths.

    Contra Kevin, the Bookings Institution has a new study out. Reuters with the story:

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those who needed it.

    1. Joseph Harbin

      KD on Feb 10:

      So how many deaths is Donald Trump responsible for? It's certainly not 200,000. Even 100,000 is probably a huge overestimate. If I had to guess based on what Wright says, I'd say that (a) Trump acted like a buffoon the whole time, (b) he made things worse by spewing stupid theories constantly, (c) he failed to support mask wearing, and (d) in concrete terms, maybe this increased the death rate 5-10%.

      1. golack

        If he said 5-10% increase in infectivity (what? not a word? ok, "infection rates"), i.e. Ro of 1.0 going to 1.1, then he might be right.

        1. Joseph Harbin

          @golack

          I took him to mean 90% to 95% of all deaths would have happened anyway if we hadn't had Trump.

          Death toll was about 425,000 when Trump left office, about 490,000 on Feb 10, and about 560,000 today.

          Kevin is too kind to Trump. Whether Brookings's number may be off too, but I'd bet it's closer to the mark.

  4. DFPaul

    Just sharing this because I thought it was rather witty...

    As you probably heard, Gov Newsom said last week that in California, over-50s can make an appointment for the vaccine starting April 1.

    I checked the website of Kaiser (my HMO) which said this:

    "Kaiser Permanente welcomes this expansion and looks forward to vaccine supply increasing to support these additional populations."

    Someone in PR is very droll. ????

    1. Joseph Harbin

      Ha.

      I have Kaiser too and can't make an appt. yet. I may stay up late Wed. and see if I can book one at 12:00. CA has OK'd vaccines for the under-50s starting Apr. 15, so the 50-64 cohort won't have long before it's all a mad dash.

      2. sfbay1949

        I would still be waiting if I depended on my health system. Our county has multiple vaccine clinics, which I used. Rite Aid and Safeway both are giving the vaccine too.

        Don't wait for Kaiser.

      3. Atticus

        Why are they so short on vaccines? Florida opened it to 40 and below this week and next week (or maybe the week after) it's open to anyone 16 and up.

      4. Atticus

        Are there any places that allow walkups? There's lots of those in Florida, some FEMA and some state run. I got my first jab a few weeks ago without an appointment. I was in and out in 25 minutes. I get my second one on Thursday. The place where I got mine, a couple days they put out messages asking people to come in because they had more doses then they could give out.

    3. Atticus

      Why are they so short on vaccines? Florida opened it to 40 and below this week and next week (or maybe the week after) it's open to anyone 16 and up.

      1. iamr4man

        I doubt it. Do they count non-citizen Palestinians who work in Israel in their case/death counts?
        Would Palestinians accept a vaccine from Israel? Or would they think it was a plot to murder/control them.

          1. cld

            And Israel really should provide it, the Palestinians aren't far enough away their epidemic disease can be ignored.

          2. iamr4man

            I would think that eventually Israel will make it a requirement of crossing the border. If Palestinians don’t have, at least, a significant minority who are afraid of a vaccine provided by Israel I’m surprised.

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