More than 4.2 million people have received the COVID-19 vaccine so far, but experts caution that number is far from where the country needs to be at this point.
What’s going on?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released new numbers for COVID-19 vaccine distribution so far.
- More than 4.2 million people received their first dose as of Saturday.
- 13 million doses had been distributed overall.
Numbers lag a little but due to reporting issues. In fact, Dr. Anthony Fauci said on NBC there were 1.5 million vaccine doses distributed in 72 hours. That’s about 500,000 per day.
- However, the federal government had promised that 20 million people would receive the COVID-19 vaccine by the end of the year.
Is it enough?
Fauci said the U.S. is not where it needs to be in terms of distribution, but the numbers will increase and the momentum will, hopefully, jump.
- “So what I’m saying right now is that, A, we’re not where we want to be. We’ve got to do much better. But B, let’s give it about a week or two into January to see if we can pick up momentum that was slowed down by the holiday season. So again, no excuses. We’re not where we want to be. But hopefully, we’ll pick up some momentum and get back to where we want to be with regard to getting it into people’s arms.”