Back when this newsletter was called Unsanitized, I spent the first edition of 2021 lamenting the vaccine rollout, which at the time was plagued by a lack of presidential leadership, delayed funds to states, an over-reliance on hospitals busy fighting a pandemic, confusion over prioritization, and even reduced staff during the Christmas holiday. As of January 3, three weeks into the rollout, only 4.33 million doses had been distributed.
But in the past month, I have been far less concerned with the rollout, which has been among the best in the world. In the 49 days since January 3, the U.S. has delivered 58.8 million shots, with the seven-day average really moving in a straight line upward until Valentine’s Day, when that average topped out at 1.7 million shots per day. Early on, about 30 percent of vaccines shipped had been delivered; now the number is 84 percent. Only five countries on Earth have delivered a first dose to a higher percentage of the population than the U.S. (Israel, the Seychelles, the UAE, Bahrain, and the UK), and only one of them has a significant population.
Only the icy weather in much of the country stopped the momentum, due to a combination of people socked in their houses and unwilling to go get the vaccine, and a delay in shipping roughly 6 million doses. Those shipments should be made up this week, and we will get a test as to how much capacity has been built when states are more flush with vaccine supply, since they’ll have leftovers from last week and the current week’s shipment.
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