I believe if President Trump was in charge, we would see more results - or folks would get fired.”
Sorry, but I must disagree. I don't believe the significant slowdown in dispensed vaccines has anything to do with the availability, administration logistics or any other bureaucratic issue.
It's the lack of importance of getting the immunization in the minds of those who have not yet received a vaccine. I going to make another prediction.....Unless things change drastically, you are going to begin seeing vaccine doses discarded increasingly more often and in much greater numbers because of not having been administered before use by dates.
Just watch and see.
Nah, they’ll just start becoming more easily available. When you walk into Walgreens or CVS, they’ll offer you a shot on the spot free or charge. They’ll set up mobile vaccination points outside Walmart, Costco, and grocery stores offering free shots on the spot.
You’ll see a new wave of people who have no objection to getting the shot, but aren’t motivated enough to figure out who has it, when they can make appointments, and standing in long lines to get it. I think we’ll hit around 75% of adults before that happens and then I think we’ll see another ~15% who get vaccinated when they don’t need to go out of their way to do it. Lots of people can’t take time off, find a babysitter, etc. They’re living hand-to-mouth and running as fast as they can just to stand still. You have to meet those people where they are if you want to reach them, and that’s at the grocery store. Because we all have to eat.
Another ~5-7% will hold out waiting for full FDA approval. That should come by the end of this summer. Maybe fall at the latest. The last 3% or so have bought into the conspiracy theories and think Bill Gates stole Alien DNA from Area 51 to make mind control chips and give everyone the mark of the beast to kick off Armageddon.
“you are going to begin seeing vaccine doses discarded increasingly more often and in much greater numbers because of not having been administered before use by dates.”
I think that before valuable (bulk) vaccines are allowed to expire in inventory, they will be exported to other needy countries.
When AstraZeneca was delayed in the USA for additional study, a few million doses that had already been manufactured, and were sitting in inventory, were sent to Mexico and Canada for their use.
There is certainly going to be some variable wastage at the retail level, but at the wholesale level, in the millions of doses, that inventory will be managed around expiration dates.
Over the next couple of months, we are scheduled to receive a flood of additional vaccine supply. Surplus should become the norm. Pfizer and Moderna alone are contracted to provide enough for every man, woman and child in the Country by the end of June.
Demand does seem to have peaked already, and first shots are back down around a million per day this last week, from the two million per day that they had gotten up to.