The US will likely soon come up against a significant obstacle in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic — more doses of the vaccines than people who are willing to receive them, according to data that is worrying experts.
“We actually think that (vaccine) supply will outstrip demand … in probably the middle of May,” Dr. Chris Murray, chair of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington, told CNN Friday.
The Kaiser Family Foundation earlier this week predicted something similar.
The foundation cited the percentage of survey respondents that said they’ve already received the vaccine or would get it as soon as they could — 62%.
Weighing that against the daily rate of vaccinations, and the CDC’s data showing more than 41% of US adults already have had at least one dose, it’s possible that the vast majority of US adults who presently want a first dose will have received them by early- to mid-May, the KFF said.
One modifying factor, the foundation said, would be how many of the people who say they’ll “wait and see” — 13% — decide to get a vaccine in the next few weeks.
Murray cited different data — daily Facebook surveys, watched by his institute, that he said showed a decline in percentage of adults wanting the vaccine since February: About 67%, down from around 75%.
But both Murray and KFF have said their different indicators point to a significant slowdown in new vaccinations sometime in May — and experts have said more people will need to be persuaded to get one, and more people will need to be made eligible, to be assured of herd immunity.
Health officials — including Dr. Anthony Fauci — estimate that somewhere between 70% to 85% of the country needs to be immune to the virus — either through inoculation or previous infection — to suppress its spread.
Currently, no Covid-19 vaccine is authorized in the US for people younger than 16. Vaccine makers have been studying their efficacy and safety in younger people, and Pfizer has asked the FDA to authorize its product for ages 12-15. Expanding vaccine eligibility will be key to stamping out the pandemic, Dr. Leana Wen told CNN.
“It’s going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for us to reach herd immunity unless our children are also vaccinated,” Wen, a CNN medical analyst and a former Baltimore health commissioner, said Saturday.
The average number of Covid-19 vaccinations administered in the US per day has been falling recently. The average was 2.86 million a day as of Friday morning, down from a record 3.38 million on April 13, according to CDC data.
Already, the military is seeing a surplus of doses and a steady decline in the rate at which they are used.
“We have heard anecdotally that younger people may feel that they’re not as vulnerable to Covid and that perhaps the risk of getting vaccination is higher than getting the disease, which of course we know not to be true,” Terry Adirim, acting assistant defense secretary for health affairs, told reporters this week.