Friday -- It's Time To Check In On The Chinese Flu Vaccine Rollout; The Toilet Paper Shortage -- January 29, 2020

In case you missed it, in the most recent data provided by the CDC, the government distributed only 830,000 doses of vaccine; meanwhile, 1.7 million doses of vaccine were administered. Demand was 203% of the supply provided in the most recent 24-hour period for which we have data. If there's any hiccup in distribution of vaccine over the weekend, it's going to be a rough Monday.

Updates

Later, 6:03 p.m. CT: Moderna, apparently saw the same thing I saw today (see below). Breaking news now: "Moderna asks FDA to authorize five additional doses per Covid vaccine vial to speed distribution.

• I believe a typical vial contains ten doses
• this is how much the FDA micro-manages the pharmaceutical companies; we have a pandemic on our hands, and a vaccine manufacturer wants to speed up delivery, but the bureaucracy must provide the "okay." 
• the previous president would have gone nuts and tweeted his frustrations; nothing to suggest the current president is even aware of this bureaucratic bottleneck;
  

Original Post

Note: in a long note like this with a lot of data, there will be content and typographical errors. If this information is important to you, go to the source.

The CDC is providing this data on a daily basis. 

As I noted earlier, the data posted by the CDC on Tuesday and Friday are the best days to use to track the vaccine rollout.

This is Friday. This is the raw CDC data, no manipulation, simply the CDC data:

	A	B	C	D	E	F
	Doses of vaccine distributed to health facilities	Change from day before	Vaccinations given	Change from day before	Percent of doses given/doses received over previous 24 hours	Percent of distributed vaccine that is actually administered
January 29, 2021	49,216,500	830,225	27,884,661	1,690,979	203.68%	56.66%
January 28, 2021	48,386,275	1,155,325	26,193,682	1,541,048	133.39%	54.13%
January 27, 2021	47,230,950	2,836,875	24,652,634	1,111,640	39.19%	52.20%
January 26, 2021	44,394,075	2,975,750	23,540,994	806,751	27.11%	53.03%
January 25, 2021	41,418,325	6,775	22,734,243	885,588	13071.41%	54.89%
January 24, 2021	41,411,550	0	21,848,655	1,310,665		52.76%
January 23, 2021	41,411,550	1,519,150	20,537,990	696,269	45.83%	49.59%
January 22, 2021	39,892,400	1,932,400	19,841,721	1,392,433	72.06%	49.74%
January 21, 2021	37,960,000	1,969,850	18,449,288	1,924,007	97.67%	48.60%
January 20, 2021	35,990,150		16,525,281			45.92%

The good news (very good news):

• the number of vaccinations being given each day is trending toward 1.7 million/day; that's huge;

The bad news (but could be be very temporary): right now the US is not keeping up with vaccine requirements; the number of vaccine doses distributed to the states by the federal government:

• Tuesday, January 26, 2021: 2,975,750
• Wednesday, January 27, 2021: 2,836,875
• Thursday, January 28, 2021: 1,155,325
• Friday, January 29, 2021: 830,225

If these numbers are accurate, and these should be the most accurate numbers posted by the CDC, this does not give me a warm fuzzy.

Do you see a trend?

• early in the week: almost 3 million doses delivered in one day;
• the next day: down to 2.8 million doses;
• the next day: down to 1.6 million doses (that's almost half as many from the day before)
• end of the week when supplies should be flowing faster than ever: down to 0.830 million

Between the beginning of the week and the end of the week, the number of vaccine doses distributed to the states drops [(2,975,750 - 830,225)/2,975,750] = 72%

The government distributed only 28% as many doses of vaccine on Friday as it distributed on Tuesday. 

Oh, oh.

This reminds me of the toilet paper shortage.

We should start hearing from governors next week that they do not have enough vaccine to give folks their second dose. 

Look at these numbers.

	A	B	C	D	E	F
	Total Doses Administered	Number of People Receiving 1 Or More Doses	Number of People Receiving 2 Doses	Number of People Considered Fully Immunized	Delta: Difference in daily doses from previous day	Percent (B+C)/A	Percent Of Americans With 2 Doses
January 29, 2021	27,884,661	22,858,318	4,780,888		1,690,979.00	99.12%	6.93%
January 28, 2021	26,193,682	21,698,606	4,263,056		1,541,048.00	99.11%	6.58%
January 27, 2021	24,652,634	20,687,970	3,801,053		1,147,640.00	99.34%	6.27%
January 26, 2021	23,504,994	19,902,237	3,481,921		770,751.00	99.49%	6.03%
January 25, 2021	22,734,243	19,252,279	3,346,390		885,588.00	99.40%	5.83%
Jan 24, 2021	21,848,655	18,502,131	3,216,836		1,310,665.00	99.41%	5.61%
Jan 23, 2021	20,537,990	17,390,345	3,027,865		1,430,031.00	99.42%	5.27%
Jan 22, 2021	19,107,959	16,243,093	2,756,953			99.44%	4.92%

Compare columns B and C, the number of folks who have received the first of two doses with the number of folks who have received the two-dose regimen. All those folks in column C are going to be coming back soon for their second dose.