The CDC estimates there are 21 million healthcare personnel, 87 million essential workers, 100 million adults with high-risk medical conditions and 53 million others 65 and older. The federal government has said 40 million coronavirus vaccine doses could be available by the end of December.Dr. Larry Corey of the University of Washington, who is heading up coronavirus vaccine clinical trials in the US, has said if both Pfizer and Moderna get vaccines authorized, they could supply 50 million more doses in January and 60 million more in February and March.
But here's the bad news (emphasis mine):
Those vaccines require two doses taken three to four weeks apart to be effective, so that would mean roughly enough vaccines to cover 75 million people by the end of March.
ACIP's priorities will help decide who gets access to those scarce vaccines first.
"The plan is to roll out doses of vaccines over the next few weeks to months in order to cover the 1a, 1b and 1c groups. There are not going to be sufficient vaccines for everybody in the first allotment," Romero said.
"It is important for the public to understand that we are dealing with select groups of individuals -- not the general public."
I completely understand the need to prioritize health-care workers and high-risk populations with vaccinations, and I also understand that it will take some time for vaccines to be produced and distributed. However, I'm still a bit disappointed to see the expectation that ONLY about one-quarter of the U.S. population will be vaccinated by April 1. I was hopeful that the pandemic would be largely finished by then.
*sigh*
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