The vaccine distribution program needs to improve by a huge margin in the next few months if the federal administration has to vaccinate a majority of Americans in 2021.
The CDC had recently said that close to 85% of Americans need to be vaccinated in order to reach the level of herd immunity.
At The Current Pace, It Will Takes 10 Years To Vaccinate Americans
Experts say that considering the current pace of vaccinations, it will take 10 years to vaccinate the majority of Americans.
The operation warp speed has done a decent job when it comes to the distribution process. They have been successful in delivering more than 12 million doses of vaccines across the country in the first few weeks of the mass vaccination program.
However, the delay has come in the administration process, and it needs to speed up by a huge margin in the next few weeks.
As of now, close to 3 million doses of vaccines are given to Frontline Healthcare workers across the US.
The goal of Federal authorities is to vaccinate around 300 million people in the first half of 2021.
This is an ambitious target by any margin, and it means that close to 80% of the country’s population will be able to get the vaccines by this time.
The level of herd immunity can be easily reached at this stage, and the economy can be easily reopened without any hassles.
The CDC has also indicated that the availability of more vaccines in the market will speed up the immunizations in the next few months.
Experts feel that at least 1 million doses of vaccines need to be delivered every day across the country in order to reach the target in the next few months.
This is a huge task for public health care, and they are likely to partner with nursing homes and pharmacies when it comes to delivering the covid-19 vaccines.
As of now, the CDC has given priority to Frontline health workers to receive the covid-19 in the country.
Apart from that, the essential workers, including teachers and the police department, will be eligible to receive the vaccines in the next phase.
Elderly people and others with health conditions will also be given priority in the second phase of vaccination that is likely to begin in February.
Many states feel that it is important to vaccinate the elders as they are more prone to developing serious health complications if they are infected with covid-19.
Vaccinating the elderly population will reduce the number of hospitalizations across the country in the next few months. This will reduce the burden on public health care that is running out of ICU beds across the country.
At this stage, it is still not clear as to how long the protection from the vaccine will last. Experts believe that the covid-19 vaccines may offer protection for close to six months in most cases.
As the vaccines need to be taken in two doses, an individual has to take the covid-19 vaccine nearly four times in a year to get complete protection from coronavirus.
For this reason, it is essential to speed up the vaccination process so that a majority of Americans can get vaccinated around the same time and herd immunity can be reached within a short duration of time.
In this manner, there will be less need to take the vaccines repeatedly, and it can reduce the burden on public health care by a huge margin.
The Federal government is providing the vaccines free of cost. There is a lot of expense involved in the vaccine distribution process, and the government has recently allocated additional funding for this program.
The incoming administration has also said that they will make vaccine distribution a priority in the near future and allocate more funds if required for the mass vaccination program.