Initially in December President Biden set a modest goal for 100 million vaccinations given in his first 100 days in office. In just a little over 2 months since his inauguration, the Biden administration succeeded in its goal, topping 100 million vaccines. While critical of the United States supply chain problems that became evident during Covid, the mass roll out of the vaccine and having enough supply to meet demand, are both impressive for the United States healthcare system, one of few times this sentiment can be felt. Biden has almost doubled his intended target goal for vaccines, Dan Goldberg states,
"The U.S. is now administering roughly 2.5 million doses per day, with more than 114 million shots given in the two months since Biden's inauguration. Barring any unexpected hiccups in the vaccine rollout, the country is already on pace to hit 200 million vaccinations in roughly five weeks, around Biden's 100th day in office."
Credit is given where credit is due, but the ease of achieving this goal only makes you wonder what the analysts in the White House truly projected the vaccination capabilities were modeled to be. It also made me question the 100 million dollar investment in J&J manufacturing facilities, given that our capabilities were proven to be more than adequate.
The success of our vaccine rollout also should teach us that policy changes in healthcare and government must be dynamic, and should constantly be challenged. Policy changes altering the vaccine eligibility dates, could be seen as the most pivotal moments in the Covid fight. When states began accepting more and more people as eligible for the vaccine, positivity rates have gone down as well. By early Summer most states should have expanded eligibility to allow all adults to get the vaccine, a huge step towards a mass national vaccination.
"Nearly half of U.S. states will have opened COVID-19 vaccinations to all adults by April 15, officials said Friday, putting them weeks ahead of the May 1 deadline that President Biden announced earlier this month."
With every goal set, they are either overachieved or drastically cut down in completion time. Unfortunately this pandemic hit in one of the most important elections in recent memory, causing the severity to be swept under the rug, and mostly ignored, but the swift change in how we have responded to the virus hopefully symbolizes what we should expect of the Biden administrations response to future crises.
I agree, Biden has done an incredible job despite the challenges he came into and the lack of cooperation by the previous administration. Furthermore it's a breath of fresh air to see the office of the presidency giving credence to this pandemic and the science behind it. His administration is giving Covid the importance that it requires and if it had been done a year ago we might not have been in the situation we are now.
I think this is all a byproduct of too much too late. The vaccine was initially developed by Moderna in February 2020. Producers were building production capabilities while the vaccine was working it's way through the slow moving FDA bureaucracy. When the vaccine was finally approved the production facilities went into overdrive making as many vaccines as possible. I've also been hearing stories about the vaccines expiring because of storage and transportation issues. It appears that so much emphasis was put on producing the the vaccine that distribution fell by the wayside. Maybe some of the mistakes that happened with the Covid pandemic will be a learning experience for the next pandemic; but if history is a teacher, that seem…
Sherman, I agree that maybe our goals as a nation need to be more ambitious. Although I am pleasantly surprised by how quick the vaccine rollout has been, I question the equality of it and how certain demographics are prioritized over others based on access to internet, cars, etc. I think the Biden Administration is doing a great of supporting vaccination, but yesterday's pause on the J&J vaccine also points to a larger issue of approval dates and the opportunity for people to use this as an excuse not to get vaccinated. I did not get the J&J vaccine, but I know this news was alarming to some people that did. However, it is really important that we emphasize that…
The quick and effective distribution of the vaccine was definitely a pleasant surprise. A major part of getting back to normal is going to involve getting people vaccinated and this is a major first step. That being said, there have been some hick-ups along the way that have caused a few issues. In particular, the recent pulling of the J&J vaccine has been a little bit of a scare for me and those in my family. Most of us got that vaccine and hearing about the blood clotting and other various issues hasn't been reassuring. Overall, we can only hope that things improve and that the pulling of the J&J vaccine was only a precautionary measure and nothing worse.
im grateful and relieved to know that the biden administration is taking steps to seriously combat the pandemic without spreading false and widespread fear. i hope this country continues to out perform on our goals, and to also increase the goals we have. like you said, maybe the reason we keep overachieving our goals is because our goals aren't big enough? i would be very interested to see if the biden administration will address some long term health goals that our nation must have in order to survive another pandemic. what changes are they making, what are they learning from the past year so that we can save the lives of millions in the future if something like covid-19 is…