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With the United States on the cusp of distributing the first COVID-19 vaccines, many health experts are releasing estimated timelines for when various groups of people will be vaccinated in the coming months, including when the population will be primarily vaccinated.
Dr Bob Wachter, Director of the Department of Medicine at UCSF, sharing his timeline on Twitter Tuesday.
Wachter said his projection was based on statements from Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership initiated by the US government to speed up vaccine development, as well as Pfizer and Moderna, the two drugmakers about to deliver. the first inoculations. .
Its schedule assumes that enough vaccines will be available to immunize 20 million people by January 2021, 150 million by June and the entire country (329 million) by December 2021.
The collective immunity threshold is the point where 70% of the population is protected against the virus, and it puts the country at that point in September. When this is achieved, the spread of the disease from person to person becomes low. As a result, the whole community is protected, not just those who are immune.
Wachter’s timeline is slightly less optimistic than that provided by Dr Moncef Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser to Operation Warp Speed, who said on Tuesday that we could achieve collective immunity by May.
“I think it may turn out to be overly optimistic, but the timeline can move a bit faster, especially if additional vaccines are approved,” Wachter said via email.
As Operation Warp Speed returns life to normal by May, Wachter speculates that by spring all high-risk individuals will be inoculated.
California residents may be wondering if the process could move faster here than in other parts of the country.
“I don’t see a lot of reasons why California will be faster or slower in achieving collective immunity,” he said. “We’re probably more proficient at logistics than some states, maybe a little less rural than some states (although many rural areas). On the flip side, our per capita COVID rate is lower than most (ranked around 30th the last time I looked), so as long as the pre-existing antibodies get you a little closer to the herd immunity count, it looks like it might take us a little bit longer.
Wachter said the biggest factor that will impact the timeliness of vaccination is vaccine reluctance. “I haven’t seen the national surveys broken down by state, nor the rate of vaccine use broken down,” he said. “But that will be the most important factor of all: what percentage of people in a state actually choose to be vaccinated.”
The United States Food and Drug Administration will consider this month allowing the emergency use of two vaccines manufactured by Pfizer and Moderna. The possibility of a vaccine being approved in the United States looks increasingly promising as British regulators approved Pfizer’s vaccine for use on Wednesday.
According to current estimates from the US project, no more than 20 million doses of each vaccine will be available by the end of 2020. Both products require two doses. As a result, shots will be rationed in the early stages. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccines committee informed Tuesday that healthcare workers and residents of long-term care facilities should be first in line.
The advisory committee will meet again to decide who should be next on the list. Among the possibilities: teachers, police, firefighters and workers in other essential areas such as food production and transport; old people; and people with underlying medical conditions.
Wachter is concerned about how people are reacting to the CDC’s draft priority list.
“I’m concerned that these decisions will be controversial and – this being Covid – politicized, as they will raise issues of race, homelessness, incarceration, elders, healthcare workers … in other words, a myriad of hot buttons, ”he wrote on Twitter. .
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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