The United States is beginning to show signs of a greater supply than demand for COVID-19 vaccines as the vaccination campaign progresses, an indicator that a portion of the population may still be reluctant to get immunized, according to the latest state-by-state data.
New York state has begun allowing vaccination for everyone over 50 without an appointment and some areas include everyone over 18, while New York City has begun to accumulate thousands of pre-appointments that are not being booked at the same rate as newly available shots are arriving.
The massive Javits Center vaccination center in the skyscraper city has thousands of doses waiting for arms, in part because vaccine availability continues to grow.
This Saturday, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio announced that they had reached a record on Friday with more than 106,000 doses administered in a single day.
The mismatches in vaccine supply and demand, once the most at-risk population has been vaccinated and those who have no doubt that the vaccine is preferable to the disease, are occurring in states such as Michigan, where appointments are overbooked or allowed to get vaccinated without a reservation, even though infections are skyrocketing more than anywhere else in the country.
Something similar is happening in Pennsylvania, where coronavirus deaths are rising as the state expands eligibility to those 16 and older and is increasing available doses of the vaccine.
So far, nearly 40% of Americans have received at least one injection of one of the licensed Covid-19 vaccines and the pace of immunization remains on track to achieve herd immunity by the end of June.
However, if the slightly more than 3 million daily doses being administered begin to wane, which has not yet occurred, the population’s herd immunity could be prolonged.
The pause decreed by U.S. health regulators on the Johnson & Johnson vaccine this week because of the risk in very rare cases of blood clots seems to have contributed more to deterring the population than to reducing dose inventories.
A survey conducted shortly before that pause by Quinnipiac University indicates that about one in four Americans are unwilling to take the vaccine under any circumstances, despite the fact that herd immunity is estimated to be achieved with between 70 and 90% of the population immunized to the virus.
The percentage of those unwilling to vaccinate rises to more than 40% among Republican voters, a finding echoed by a similar poll conducted by Monmouth University.