Flattening
While an average of nearly 1.9 million people a day came in to get their first dose of the vaccine during the week of April 11, the average for the week of April 16 was around 1.47 million. The total doses the U.S. has administered nationwide since vaccines were first authorized has also flattened out over the past few days, CDC data show, interrupting the exponential growth of the last few months.
And on Wednesday, a daily update from the Department of Health and Human Services showed numbers were down this week to an average of just over 3 million shots administered a day, when on Friday, the country was averaging about 3.35 million a day.
The decline started one day before the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was suspended, suggesting the nationwide “pause” might not be the primary factor, even if it may have contributed.
It may also have to do with logistics, and who has more ability to overcome obstacles.
“Not everyone can get to a mass vaccination site; not everyone can use the existing web tools,” Brownstein said. “Even though we may see a map that has a lot of sites, it’s not necessarily the most convenient, especially for those that are essential workers who can’t take the time off work.”
I’m lucky that way; I live in a big city with a pretty good public transportation system. All I had to do was walk down the hill and hop on the number 8 bus. Towns, villages, suburbs are more difficult.
Biden listed some policy solutions, like increased vaccine supply to local pharmacies and federally run clinics so that 90% of Americans are within 5 miles of a vaccination site. He also called on all businesses to give employees paid time off when they get their shots or need to recover from any side effects. Biden announced a new tax policy that would allow all small and medium-sized businesses to apply to be reimbursed for the time off they give their employees.
Let’s get this thing done.
Also, logistics in the sense of a logistic curve. We could not have had exponential growth forever, although the inflection point may be too soon.
Quibble
No. Doses per day has been ramping up linearly, not exponentially.
You can see a graph at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/covid-19-vaccine-doses.html
Is it availability of the vaccine…or is that many people who want to be vaccinated already have and we are now descending into the swamp of Trumpalo Q Anon and Hippie-Dippie anti-vaxxer populations?
It’s not vaccine scarcity now, but it’s not just anti-vaxxers, it’s also not getting it (yet) for other reasons. Some of it is always going to be the antis though, drat them.
My MiL and I went to the same mass-vax operation in our hometown. It was very well run–at least as efficient as any blood drive I’ve ever been to, which are also usually pretty efficient affairs.
However, we were both a little dismayed at the fact that, at the second dose, the crowd was noticeably thinner. I have a concern that the warnings about the second dose often having more severe side-effects may have scared some folks off; others, of course, may be assuming that one shot is really enough, after all.
Within 5 miles sounds so reasonable – to someone with unthinking access to a car. It’s an insurmountable distance to someone who is disabled and doesn’t have access to a vehicle. I’ve read that large tracts of the US are completely without public transport. What are people supposed to do? Walking five miles to an appointment isn’t something most people would manage easily; let alone walking another five miles home again afterwards. Vaccinators are going to have to find some way of getting to the unvaccinated, instead of expecting the unvaccinated to come to them.
I noticed the same thing. My first dose, the line was out the door. The second dose, there were maybe 12 people getting it.
That describes the Midwest (other than Chicago and a couple of other large cities) perfectly. In my town, I am almost dead center, which makes me five miles from the outer reach on each side. Nothing in town is more than five miles from me. I could not walk that distance. I would not have time to try the walk, either, because i have to work. Working class people also have to work, that’s why they’re called working class. It would be nearly impossible.
As for the disabled, we do have a mass transit van they can call, but as far as I know, there is only one, maybe a couple. And I’m not sure it’s free. I’ve never used it. But you can’t just go out, hop on a bus, and ride to the appointment. And you might not be able to get the van to pick you up if they’re booked up.
I think the sign ups should be online, but also paper sign ups at convenient locations, like all grocery stores or something, so people without a computer, or who aren’t savvy, can still get signed up. And there should be a choice to receive it at their home, so people without cars could manage. It might seem like a logistics nightmare, but a trained user of GIS could figure out routes easily enough. Announce over the TV, the paper, the radio that you will be in a certain area of town on the following days, then anyone who can’t get to the site could sign up.
See? Yeah, it’s challenging, but it doesn’t take any great genius to figure out how to do it. It would probably add more expense, though, because you might need more people (though you could also set up mobile stations like they do for blood drives, and staff them with the same people that are running the show now, and cover each neighborhood).