On Thursday, dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading expert in infectious diseases, made a prediction that was predicted in the ears of millions of Americans who are not yet eligible for COVID-19.
“If you look at the projection, I would imagine that by the time we are in April, we would be calling. [lack] of better wording, “open season,” Fauci told the NBC program “Today.” “Virtually anyone and everyone in any category can start vaccinating.”
April? It’s less than 50 days away. The U.S. vaccination campaign began 60 days ago, on December 14th. Since then, only 11.3 million Americans – mostly health workers, with a few elderly people – have received both doses of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccine. Another 24 million Americans got their first shot and are waiting for their second shot.
The news is filled with headlines about breaking down dating sites, struggling seniors and governors complaining about supply shortages. Meanwhile, we have just started vaccinating Americans aged 65 or older; most essential workers are not even eligible yet.
So does Fauci give false hope when he says that ‘anyone and everyone in a category’ can enter vaccination from April? Or is his projection realistic?
The answer, if you actually examine the numbers, is astonishing – and encouraging. It seems that April is not out of the question at all.
The first thing to consider is the current rate of vaccination, which is faster than you would think. “If you now compare to what we literally did a month ago,” Fauci said Thursday, “the escalation was really significant.”
He’s right. On January 11, the US administered an average of 632,000 doses per day. Now we average 1.6 million. It’s not just an increase of two and a half. It is also more than the revised target of 1.5 million doses per day that President Biden set two short weeks ago after critics said his previous target of 1 million doses per day was too low.
The next thing to consider is where the offer is headed. (Hint: it’s heading upwards.) “If we come in March and April, the number of available doses will allow for a much larger vaccination approach, which is really much faster than what you see now,” Fauci said. Thursday.
Initially, the logistical bottlenecks delayed the vaccination; many states administered less than half the doses they received. But now that some of the knots are tangled, the national amount of available doses has climbed to 68 percent, with several states clearing 80 or even 90 percent.
In contrast, the offer we withhold today; At present, the doses administered, the doses starting for the first time since the start of distribution, are consistently higher than the dose. But as Fauci said, that should change soon. Since Biden took office, doses sent to states have increased by 28 percent to 11 million doses per week, according to White House coordinator Jeffrey Zients, COVID-19. As of Thursday, the government will increase the number by another five percent, with 1 million doses directly to 6,500 retail pharmacies and another 1 million directly to 250 community health centers serving hard-to-reach groups such as the homeless, migrant workers and residents of public housing.
Production is also increasing. Initially, Pfizer and Moderna promised to deliver 100 million doses each by the end of March. But Pfizer recently added 20 million doses to the pledge and then announced that it could send all 200 million doses purchased by the US before the end of May, or two months earlier than expected, because in fact six or even seven doses out can press the vials. had to contain only five.
At the same time, Modern American regulators are asking for approval, which they say could be a remarkably simple proposal to speed up the immunization of Americans against the coronavirus: fill empty spaces in its vials with as much as 50 percent more doses, ‘according to the New York Times. If the change is approved, which could happen this month, it would theoretically allow Moderna to send ten million million doses by the end of March and another 150 million by June.
To put this in perspective, approximately 68 million doses have been distributed over the past 60 days. Over the next 50 days – that is by April – the US could get 175 million more.
And it’s not even a single dose of Johnson & Johnson vaccine that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will approve this month, with 100 million doses to follow before July. Or the vaccines Novavax and Astra Zeneca, which would also be available by April. Or the fact that Biden’s government announced on Thursday that it was insured another At the end of July, 200 million doses of Pfizer and Moderna will be delivered in ‘regular’ doses, bringing the total amount of just the two manufacturers to 600 million doses, or enough to fully absorb every adult in America (and then some). te ent.
The administration of so many extra millions of doses will be a challenge, but Fauci sounded confident on Thursday. “I would imagine, and in fact I’m pretty sure we’ll see by the end of April that pharmacies, community vaccination centers, mobile units are increasing the vaccination rate,” he said. said. “Hopefully we will speed up the dose by early spring.”
Here it is worth noting that the US has already shown that it can administer three million flu shots a day – double the current daily average for COVID-19 shots.
But even if the rate of actual vaccination does not accelerate so much, we still need to be on track for the “open season” in April. The numbers add up. There are approximately 54 million elderly people in the U.S., and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention classifies approximately 30 million Americans as essential workers. According to the CDC, the combined number of people who are likely to be eligible for vaccination before an “open season” is a group that may also include non-elderly people with a high-risk medical condition.
But this is the thing: not all eligible Americans are actually going to get vaccinated – especially as more and more younger workers are eligible. Based on the latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey, a majority of Americans say they do not want to be vaccinated as soon as possible, and a full 31 percent of non-medically essential workers say they plan to wait to be vaccinated. to see how the vaccine works. on other people before rolling up their own sleeves. Among Americans aged 18-29 – and among Black Americans, who have long suffered from medical discrimination – the number rises to 43 percent. This is 37 percent among Latinos.
According to one respected forecast, the current U.S. job shows that at least 100 million Americans started vaccinating by April 1 – more than enough to cover all the elderly, frontline workers and high-risk individuals who say they intend to be vaccinated as soon as they can. And it assumes that the rate of vaccination never exceeds 2 million doses per day.
The bottom line, as former FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb recently explained, is that soon, “maybe in April, supply will start more than demand” – and then “the challenge will not be to ration a scarce resource. , but how to reach patients reluctant to be vaccinated. ”
At that point, it would not be a surprise if state and federal leaders decided that the time had come to keep the ball rolling by opening up vaccination “to virtually anyone and everyone in any category.” This is especially true if, as Gottlieb predicts, the monthly vaccine supply reaches 100 million doses by the end of March.
Not that vaccination itself will be immediate for anyone and everyone who wants it, as Fauci noted Thursday. “From then on,” he said, “it will probably only take a few months, just logistically, to get vaccines into people’s arms.” Hesitation, meanwhile, will continue to be a challenge, especially as cases continue to decline, the elderly are protected from serious illness and more reluctant Americans begin to wonder, “Why bother?”
Still, Fauci remains optimistic. “Hopefully, when we get to the middle and end of summer,” he said Thursday, “we [will] has achieved the goal we are talking about – namely that the overwhelming majority of people in this country have been vaccinated. ”
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