Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
Photographer: David Paul Morris / Bloomberg
The United States has administered 200 million doses of Covid-19 vaccine, a White House official said Friday.
Only less than 40% of Americans have had at least one dose and about a quarter have completed one- and two-dose vaccinations. The news was has announced on Twitter by Cyrus Shahpar, Covid-19 data director at the White House.
The launch of the vaccine has accelerated as supply increases, with the United States giving blows to about 1% of the population every day, according to Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker. The United States took 89 days to administer the first 100 million doses, a milestone reached on March 12. The second 100 million came in just 36 days.
President Joe Biden said his goal was to administer 200 million doses in the first 100 days of administration. Since vaccination was started under Donald Trump’s administration, another 16.5 million doses will be needed to reach Biden’s mark. That should happen sometime next week, about a week before Biden’s deadline.
This target will be slightly more difficult to achieve due to a break in use Johnson & Johnson as a health regulator is investigating reports of dangerous blood clots. It is unclear when the use of these photos will resume. He indicated a group of expert advisers it will take at least another week to study the problem.
The break in J&J vaccines will not have a major impact in the short term – the vast majority of doses that are distributed in the US are photos taken by Pfizer Inc. and his German partner BioNTech SE and by Moderna Inc. But single-dose J&J vaccines are important for long-term US supply, and the fact that they are single-dose makes them easier to use, especially for harder-to-reach populations.
There are also signs that even if the government arranges for the distribution of tens of millions of doses per week, supply begins to accumulate in certain locations. A handful of states now have more than 30 percent of the doses sent to them still unused, Bloomberg reported Thursday.
Part of this growing surplus may be an expected inefficiency, as vaccines are being sent to several locations and many of the most enthusiastic people have been shot. But there are also signs in some places, such as Lynchburg, Virginia, that vaccination schedules will not be met, even if less than the average local population has been vaccinated.