1818

So June 19th, maybe?

1819

Imagine, perhaps, if a prominent national politician, perhaps – let’s call him something memorable, like the Presiding officer in charge of the government, something along those lines – were to, perhaps have given a nationally publicized speech in the last 7 days or so outlining that every state will be opening eligibility to all citizens by some future but specific date. Like Maybe May 1st? ;)

(May not get the first shot by May 1st, but all states will have to get everyone eligible to sign up by then, per the White House.)

1820

Yeah, the dashboard says they’ve administered 12 million doses statewide, and have another 10 million in reserve. Assuming they have to administer about 80 60 million doses (2 doses per person adult) that means we’re about 15% 20% done. Given that the population of 65+ in CA is about 15%, I’d expect a shift to Phase 2 soon, but I’m not sure how that’s gonna work. Hopefully they don’t just open the floodgates and do some sort of age tiering.

1821

I actually hadn’t heard this. Weird that it didn’t get more national coverage, because if it works and we return to “normal” by summer, that would be a big fucking deal. I really hope that dropping the eligibility requirements May 1 doesn’t just result in logjams.

1822

It was the main initiative and the focus of his first national prime time address to the American people since his election, on all four networks and all news nets at the same time.

(And honestly…expect logjams, at least at first and probably especially in California. But expect those to clear up as things go along, too, I’d think.)

1823

Sure, but how does that percolate down? Who watches TV news? It’d be great if I visited my state or county’s vaccination site and it said “as directed by President Biden all adults will be eligible to receive the vaccine by May 1.” It doesn’t say that in any way, shape, or form now.

1824

I did hear the May 1st date, but who knows? Some states are saying they’ll be ready earlier, and presumably some states won’t make the date. California is… well, it’s California. So, I stand behind my “who knows”.

1825

Here’s my back o the napkin math:

We have administered 109 million shots in the US so far.

We are on track to continue to do about 18 million shots per week.

So it’s March 16, which is a perfect time for the calculation, since it’s sitting right on 6 weeks until May 1.

6 weeks giving 18 million shots per week is another 108 million shots, give or take with the Easter holiday.

That puts us at 217 million shots administered. At current ratios, that’s probably 130 million with a first shot, and 80-90 million with completed vaccination cycles.

OK.

There are between 230-250 million people in the US who are eligible for the vaccine, based on age. Let’s split the difference ant say 240 million.

We also know that it’s likely that 33% of that 240 million are at least vaccine-skeptical, if not downright in refusal mode. So take 80 million off that 240 million, because that 80 million are likely to be the last in line, no matter what. They’re the ones who’ll be the focus of outreach carrot-and-stick programs in the summer and fall.

That leaves 160 million.

Again, by May 1, we’re likely to have shots in 130 million of those shoulders. Arms. Whatever we want to call it. :)

At our current rate, by the END of May, we’ll be at around another 72 million shots, again give or take with the Memorial Day weekend.

Is the math here starting to swim this into view yet?

A lot of bad and good can happen by then. There could be production kinks. But there could be improved last-mile delivery and administration of shots, too.

1826

They probably don’t want to announce a date until they truly have their date set. In Michigan we just got an announcement a few days ago that it would be open to all adults starting April 5. Had they made a big deal about the May 1 date it probably would have ended up being more confusing to people.

1827

Not sure how a state will miss it, to be honest. It’s not a promise of a shot by May 1. It’s a promise that you can get on a waiting list without restriction by May 1. For instance, I can’t get on a waiting list in Fairfax County, VA right now, because I’m not old enough and don’t work a job that classifies me for eligible status. By May 1, I’ll be able to.

For states, it’s essentially adding open database/spreadsheet blocks on the back-end and then opening the eligibility filters on the front end so that by May 1, people can sign up.

Bandwidth as big states (California, Texas, Florida, NY) open eligibility for all seems like the biggest stumbling block from an IT perspective. And this is very much an IT thing to solve.

1828

I can go online right now and find several pharmacies within 10 miles of me that have available appointments, even though CA expanded eligibility to a few million more yesterday. The infrastructure has been ramping up over the last few months. Hopefully the logjams that exist will be due to lack of supply and not IT overload.

1829

Feels like the smaller states will hit their limit early, hopefully we can divert those vaccines to the populous areas and still get them into arms at an increased rate. Kentucky’s 1C category is broad enough that you have to try not to be eligible.

1830

The NY state site has been surprisingly robust when I was trying to sign up. One effect of the distributed rollout via private pharmacies is likely that there isn’t really going to be a single point of failure? If people are signing up on Walgreens.com / CVS.com, they aren’t pummeling the state signup forms at the same time.

1831

BTW, for sure the wheels can come off. That’s kinda been the by-word of the coronavirus era, right?

Point is – here on the afternoon of March 16 – things look really good on the vaccine rollout initiative in the US. Hopefully they look good still tomorrow. :)

1832

Just to add on, on the opposite side of possible new production delays, J&J is saying they will have 37M doses by end of March, 100M by end of June so the most likely case is that vaccination rates are actually faster than the ones that triggercut used in his math above.

1833

Plus of J&J is I think it only requires one dose. That’s what they’re using to vaccinate at-risk populations in San Diego, because they’re less likely to make their 2nd dose in the window.

1834

According to my sources at work, CA began allowing providers to use clinical judgment when dealing with the ages 16-64 for higher risk. That clinical judgment leads to fairly open for anyone with medical issues. This also indicates we’re not nearly as far from releasing the hounds on this as some might think. J&J is also not circulating which is, as I said before, a huge game changer.

1835

Guess which president just put the oval office seal of approval on filibuster (wink-wink) reform?

1836

Wait…wait…I KNOW THIS ONE…

1837

Look, if Grampy Joe wants to just keep blowing past all my expectations for his administration, I’m not going to be mad about it.