I realized something rather shocking recently: almost every person currently dying in the United States from covid-19 decided not to get vaccinated. There are still over 500 people dying each day of covid-19 in the US. We are talking thousands of people each week dying preventable deaths. Why is this fact not being publicized?
Here is some data on breakthrough deaths from the US CDC website:
Total breakthrough deaths as of April 26, 2021: 132
Total breakthrough deaths as of May 10, 2021: 223
As we can see, for the two week period from April 26 to May 10 there were just 91 breakthrough deaths recorded. Total US deaths from covid-19 during that period were around 700 per day, for approximately 9,800 deaths. Just 91 out of 9,800 deaths were fully vaccinated. That’s amazing. 9,700 of those deaths could have been prevented if the person had been vaccinated. The CDC website does mention that the breakthroughs are probably being undercounted, so maybe the vaccine effectiveness isn’t quite as high as the 99% that these numbers show, but it is certainly up there. (In fact Pfizer claims 97% and numerous studies have shown very high effectiveness.)
It should also be noted that 93% of those who recently died from covid-19 were 50+ years of age, so they have had access to vaccine for quite a while now. They actually decided not to get vaccinated and most likely died as a result of their decision.
I’ve been following the vaccine rollout and wanted to record some of my observations. The following graph shows the vaccination status for various countries in terms of first doses.
First Doses by Country
So let’s talk about each country. I am particularly interested in where each country will get in terms of what percentage of the population will actually accept the vaccine. Going forward, how well each country does in terms of breakouts will depend heavily on their vaccine acceptance level.
ISRAEL: Israel struck a special deal with Pfizer to get themselves early access to the vaccine. Their rollout has been great and they are doing amazingly well when you consider how young their population is. Only about 69% of their population is in the 17+ age rage currently receiving vaccinations. They are currently 63% vaccinated overall which puts their take-up among eligible persons at 91%. They do have plans to start vaccinating 12-16 year olds soon since FDA has now approved the Pfizer vaccine for that age group.
UNITED KINGDOM: UK is at 53% and showing no signs yet of slowing down. Their curve did flatten out some around the end of March but that is because they started doing second doses.
UNITED STATES: You just have to shake your head at the US. They are at 46% and already showing vaccine hesitancy is going to be a major factor for them. Take-up is currently under 1.5% per week and at the current rate it will take 3 weeks just to hit 50%, assuming no further slowdowns. It will be interesting to see how they progress in the long term but it looks like getting much over 50 is going to be a big challenge for them.
CANADA: Yay Canada! We are doing great; currently at 42% but rising rapidly. US hesitancy has played in our favor as manufacturers based in the US now have supply available for export. (Our major vaccine is the Pfizer which was previously coming out of Belgium. As of the beginning of May it is now being shipped from the US at 2 million doses per week, which is double what we were getting in March.) We are giving first doses to over 5% per week and within the next week will rocket past the US with no sign of slowing down. My expectation is that we will easily hit 60 and perhaps start to slow down in the 65-70 range. Our leaders have set a target of 75%.
GERMANY/SPAIN/FRANCE: These 3 are doing great. They are not going quite a fast as Canada in terms of first doses because they are giving second doses within 3-4 weeks of the first, as specified by the manufacturers. Canada has decided to go up to 4 months before giving the 2nd dose in order to get as many first doses as possible. (Which was absolutely the correct call, by the way, given the lack of supply and high effectiveness of the first dose.)
MEXICO: Mexico is only at 12% but the US recently began exporting vaccine to Mexico so I hope they can ramp up their vaccinations considerably. It is in the US’s own best interests to get Mexico vaccinated as quickly as possible, given their shared border.
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