COVID Corner - February Edition
COVID Corner
There is finally a light at the end of the tunnel. We’ve been looking at a mirage for over a year now, but this time the glimmer of hope is real. The most anticipated vaccines of all time are here. They are rolling out around the globe at unprecedented rates, but is it fast enough?
COUNTDOWN TO ‘NORMAL’
As you already know, there are lots of great resources out there that compile the daily data around COVID-19. We’ve had our eyes glued to the John’s Hopkins Dashboard since March 2020. More recently, Bloomberg’s Vaccine Tracker has become our daily coffee update.
However, these tools only look backwards - they don’t try to make any projections. It was only at our request that Bloomberg added the “At this rate, it will take an estimated __ months to cover 75% of the population with a two-dose vaccine” ticker to their page.
After a year of looking backwards, we’re ready to look forward. Of course, like everything, take this information with a grain of salt. We don’t have the inside scoop about what Operation Warp Speed is planning and we don’t have any connections to Big Pharma to know where exactly their production stands.
While history is not a guarantee of future performance, it is one of the best guides we have. Therefore, we have used trends and targets to create illustrations of when ‘normal’ (or, at least, the ‘new normal’) will resume.
We are currently ramping up our vaccine administration rate by 35k doses/day. If we can maintain this trend, we can reach herd immunity by the end of June.
However, to do so would require vaccine administration rates of nearly 6M doses/day. We are currently averaging just 1.7M doses/day.
Unfortunately, we will likely face vaccine distribution limits. However, if we can maintain our current ramp up to at least 3.2M doses/day, we can still reach herd immunity by the end of July. This timing is critical to get kids back to school for the fall.
Besides administration limits, there is still an issue of vaccine production and distribution limits.
Looking at the first two charts, in May our target dose administration total exceeds the vaccines promised by Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech. For this reason, it is essential to analyze the data through the lens of production limitations.
Unfortunately, while production is the most critical parameter, the metrics have proven to be highly variable. The initial production targets have already been increased after the initial estimates proved to be too conservative. Additionally, as more vaccines are approved, the total supply will increase.
Sources:
https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/joe-biden-town-hall-02-16-21/h_dcc5457025a71bf4fbdd1d92d42bab35
https://www.cnet.com/health/when-will-you-get-the-covid-19-vaccine-what-to-know-about-the-delay-priority-order-now/
https://qz.com/1949739/how-many-vaccine-doses-will-pfizer-and-moderna-deliver-to-the-us/
Last update: 3/1/21