Half the eligible population has had a first dose.
Vaccine lines and waits are disappearing.
Supply is soaring.

The end of the "mass" part of the U.S. vaccine campaign is coming to an end. The rest will be much different. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-25/when-will-u-s-vaccination-be-done-we-re-getting-closer

I've been watching the U.S. vaccine rollout every day for the last four months. It started slow, gained momentum, took off like a rocket and has likely now peaked.

Success going forward is going to look very different. The metrics from March are not the metrics for May.

In March, we saw many states with 90%+ of delivered supply used. That was very efficient vaccine usage, but also tight supply.

Those % figures are now falling, as they probably should. Tight supply is not what you want when you're targeting harder-to-reach/convince populations.

The Biden admin says they're pursuing a policy of "overwhelm the problem". That means:

Lots of vaccine sitting around, ready
At lots of locations
Many open appointments

If you saw that in March, you'd say "this is a failure." This is a different point in the rollout.

The Biden team was very happy, as were lots of people, about big dose numbers a month ago. Here's how they're talking about it now, which more or less matches w/ my read:

“Going forward, we expect daily vaccination rates will moderate and fluctuate.”

“We’ve gotten vaccinations to the most at-risk and those most eager to get vaccinated as quickly as possible."

“It’s OK if there’s not a long line of 1,000 people... That’s good, that was the plan.”

I think that's correct. It doesn't mean there's not a lot of work to do! It just means that work, and the numbers, look different.

"Mass" vaccination is useful when you have a huge mass of people who all need and want to be vaccinated at once.

What's next is more boutique.

This whole is more or less what I've written here, btw: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-25/when-will-u-s-vaccination-be-done-we-re-getting-closer?sref=leQ3i2ya

Think of it like a blockbuster movie release (remember those?)

Mass vaccination is everyone who rushed to see it in theaters on week one.

We're about to start the "I'll catch it on Netflix in a couple weeks" crowd.

There is some very good news here. There are a LOT of people who have gotten their first shots. Almost all of them seem likely to complete their second. (I know there's a sort of doomsy piece in the Times today, but... it's still 92% completion)

Right now, the U.S. is about where Israel was in mid-Feb. (This uses our apples to apples "enough for X% metric, which helps create good comparisons).

They kept vaccinating after that point to about 50% of their pop. (and are now at ~60%).

Look at the case curve.

(The usual caveats: The U.S. isn't Israel, etc etc etc)

I hope this helps people as they think about how to read the numbers going forward. In short:

Supply % is gonna go up
Vaccine numbers are going to go down
The next phase means reaching people at a grind, not a rush
That's probably fine

Here's our full vaccine tracker, which I hope you'll give a look at bookmark: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/?sref=leQ3i2ya

And here's my story, which has a few things not in this thread: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-04-25/when-will-u-s-vaccination-be-done-we-re-getting-closer?sref=leQ3i2ya