Half now and the other half before the end of the year, hopefully!

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that 130 million American adults had received at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine. That is slightly over 50% of adults over 18 years of age in the United States. Given this trend, we expect that over 50% of adult Americans will have received both doses and be fully protected in one month.

Adults

https://www.newsmax.com/newsfront/virus-outbreak/2021/04/18/id/1018065/. The adult population of the United States is the target for receiving pandemic vaccines. One hundred and thirty million people have been vaccinated with one dose, and eighty-four million of that group has both doses.
Johnson & Johnson’s vaccine has been on hold for blood clots and is about to reinstate into the vaccine program shortly, maybe even this week.

Vaccine Tracking

https://github.com/owid/covid-19-data/blob/master/public/data/vaccinations/country_data/United%20States.csv A month ago, a little more than 40 million people had received two doses, and just over 75 million had received their first. Given that same trajectory, a month from today, around the 18th of May, 124 million, just under one-half of all adult Americans, will have had both doses. Over 180 million people will have had one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. That means around 70% of adult Americans will have at least one level of protection from the virus.

Herd Immunity Tracking

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/04/us-hits-record-covid-vaccine-distribution-pace. With J&J’s vaccine being reinstated later this coming week, vaccinations should average over 3 million inoculations daily. In the past month, almost 1.5 million doses were dispensed daily. The trend is growing and has approached 4 million doses daily this past week.

Herd immunity is predicted when 65% of the United States population is fully vaccinated (two doses where required). Assume that only two million adults who have received their first dose are given their second coronavirus vaccine dose in the next 30 days; over 60% of all adult Americans would be on the cusp of herd immunity by the middle of May 2021. The current trend of vaccinations is higher than 2 million doses daily.

Conclusion

On the bright side, herd immunity should be achieved by the end of May with or without the J&J vaccine. However, this herd immunity is only for adults. There are another 90 million (or so) children under the age of 18 who have not received nor will they receive a vaccine before the end of summer.

Clinical trials are not planned to be finished before summer. The adult population will be protected well before summer, and we will be waiting for vaccine approval and distribution for children. How fast can that happen? Based on what we have seen, pretty fast, indeed!

My prediction for herd immunity has always been September 2021. It looks like herd immunity for adults will happen before that date. Herd immunity for the entire U.S. population may still occur around September.

Live Longer & Enjoy Life! – Red O’Laughlin – RedOLaughlin.com

 

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