Thread by @Neoavatara

So want to do a #covidvaccineupdate, because there appears to be a lot of confusion where we are having problems.

First and foremost? Almost nobody on the planet is doing well, outside of Israel, UAE and Bahrain.

The US has vaccinated just under 4% of the population in exactly one month. At that pace, it would take two years; but note the curve above. The rate is increasing at a steady rate. After 2 weeks, the US had vaccinated only about 1%.

If the US can maintain that rate of increase (or even half of that), we could be vaccinating 15% or so of the public monthly by March.

That is if the supply can be sustained; I am guessing it can be, with Moderna, Pfizer and JNJ expanding production dramatically already.

What we need is refocus of priorities. IMHO, priorities should be (and most agree):

1. Elderly
2. High Risk
3. HC workers
4. Everyone else by age stratification

The mistake so far is worrying about these groups too much. States that have focused on this, and have prevented 'line jumpers' are having far, far higher rates of wastage of vaccine.

That is plain stupid.

We should be using the Israeli Pizza guy plan.

Most of you have heard this, but in Israel, clinics are literally, at the end of the day, roaming the streets and asking people to take the vaccine, instead of wasting it.

Here in the US, we would rather waste it, apparently.

We are CHOOSING that.

The US nationwide is using only about 41% of the vaccines distributed right now.

Israel? Using about DOUBLE that.

Furthermore, it is frankly shocking to me that densely populated cities (New York, for example) are unable to use all of their vaccines, when remote and sparsely populated states like SD and WV are doing twice as well.

There is no excuse for that.

I guarantee that the Biden team will be more competent; their messaging alone will be a huge benefit.

But unless locals shift gears, and focus on the priorities that really matter, this is going to be a long hard slog, and the Feds certainly are not going to fix it.

Couple more points:

- FL has now passed NY in per capita vaccinations (with 100k more doses).
- MI, which started out poorly, has surged back and is now doing quite well; certainly better than Ohio.
- AL and SC may pass CA (!) in per capita # soon.

bloomberg.com/graphics/covid…