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Medicine United States

Biden Sets New Covid Vaccine Goal of 200 Million Shots Within His First 100 Days (cnbc.com) 198

President Joe Biden on Thursday announced a new goal of having 200 million Covid vaccination shots being distributed within his first 100 days in office. From a report: "I know it's ambitious -- twice our original goal -- but no other country in the world has come close ... to what we're doing," Biden told reporters as he opened his first news conference as president. "I believe we can do it." As of Friday, 100 million coronavirus vaccinations had been given since Biden was inaugurated. That benchmark -- which Biden set as his original target Dec. 8 -- was reached on his 59th day in office. After a slower-than-expected rollout under former President Donald Trump, the pace of vaccinations in the United States has rapidly increased and has been averaging about 2.5 million doses per day in the past week. If that vaccination rate is maintained, Biden's 200-million-dose target would be hit in about five weeks, or around April 23 -- a full week before Biden would mark 100 days in the White House. The federal government has a deal with Johnson & Johnson for delivery of 200 million doses. The first half of that order expected by the end of June. Merck is helping to make J&J's shot, which is a single-dose vaccination.
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Biden Sets New Covid Vaccine Goal of 200 Million Shots Within His First 100 Days

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  • by ranton ( 36917 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:30PM (#61201868)

    I wish they could find a way to identify counties where a greater percentage of the population are eager to take the vaccine. I live in a very blue area where everyone everyone is fighting for doses, but I have had many friends and coworkers find success driving a few hours to more rural areas where they seem to have plenty of doses.

    I'm not sure if the problem is just not accounting for population density, but it sure seems like counties where less people are politically opposed to the vaccines have a greater shortage than counties with more residents who think the vaccine is just a way for the government to track them.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by olsmeister ( 1488789 )
      Same here. Our allocation this week was spoken for within 5 minutes of the website opening up the schedule, but I could drive a county over and get a dose no problem.
    • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

      Oh sure, get vaccinated today with your v1 nanobots, but then you have to wait another year to get vaccinated with the v2 nanobots!

      p.s.: this is sarcasm, for the conspiracy-dementia people out there.

      • by Ostracus ( 1354233 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:52PM (#61201960) Journal

        We'll have to start dosing those people like we do animals. Darting them from helicopters.

        • Could always just put it in the water. I often wonder what is in there now. :-)
    • by malkavian ( 9512 )

      What you'll likely find is that it's the healthcare entities in the areas that have individually struck deals for purchase of the vaccines, perhaps coupled with federal purchasing.
      If you're in an area where there's a high population density, then it's likely that this has been constrained by cost of procurement and the availability of resource to deliver to candidate recipients.
      If you're in a low population, where there's less contention for the available resource, then yes, you should find it easier on the

      • by ranton ( 36917 )

        If you're in an area where there's a high population density, then it's likely that this has been constrained by cost of procurement and the availability of resource to deliver to candidate recipients. If you're in a low population, where there's less contention for the available resource, then yes, you should find it easier on the staffing side, to obtain the necessary resource.

        I find this very hard to believe, since there are more medical professionals and facilities per capita in urban / suburban areas than in rural areas. This has been a worrying trend in the medical field for a long time. There would be more contention for those resources in rural areas than there is in high population density areas.

        Adding the veil of politics over the top is quite unnecessary, as most of the studies into anti-vaxx have shown that it's fairly balanced demographically in the political sense.

        Traditional anti-vax behavior has been a problem on both the right and left, although their reasons for being anti-vax are different. But Covid has become very politicized, which i

      • Operation Warp Speed left distribution/injection up to the states, look to your state leaders for answers about disparities.

        The effectiveness of vaccine campaigns varies greatly among the states, for example West Virginia implemented a simple age-based strategy (as did Florida, I believe), and WV has gotten a high percentage of their population vaccinated.

        That the states that find themselves struggling to distribute the vaccine doses are lead by politicians that fought with the Trump administration is coinc

        • Operation Warp Speed left distribution/injection up to the states, look to your state leaders for answers about disparities.

          And this is the way the US is set up...even today, the Feds do have very limited powers on what they can tell states to do.

          While states rights have been eroding badly on past few decades..they still hold quite a bit of power, so while things can be moved at a Fed level, they really cannot tell the states what or how to do things after they land in the individual states' hands.

          A grea

        • From the outside observer your country seems to be doing much better with a functionally present leader. He should be happy to own that.
    • What you're describing is a form of market-based decisionmaking. The typical mechanism by which signal consumers send signals to buyers is with dollars: if I want it, I'm willing to pay more for it.

      We would be able to figure out where these high-demand pockets are if we were charging money for the shots and, for instance, auctioning off appointments. This would be a highest-bidder first system.

      While it would theoretically have the drawback of putting rich dudes ahead of poor people who are at more risk of e

      • by ranton ( 36917 )

        What you're describing is a form of market-based decisionmaking.

        I disagree. The current situation obviously isn't market driven, because the wealthier suburbs would have far more doses than surrounding rural areas. Even on a per capita basis.

        And a solution doesn't require auctioning off appointments. Just provide a web site for signups, and distribute doses based on the quantity of sign ups. No need for the wealth of an area to factor in, just willingness to take vaccines combined with population density. I could it being argued this is also market-driven, but certainly

        • The current situation obviously isn't market driven, because the wealthier suburbs would have far more doses than surrounding rural areas.

          Funny you should mention that.

          https://www.statnews.com/2021/... [statnews.com]

          • Not only does the study not control for AGE, particularly important regarding Florida given the way they distributed their vaccines, but it explicitly notes that there are gigantic holes in the data they've been able to procure. That being said, we do know Angel of Death Cuomo secretly got his family and friends vaccinated as early as possible.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      I think that's a natural consequence of trying to make the vaccine available everywhere, not necessarily an indicator of an urban/rural difference in vaccine hesitancy. Hesitancy was a big deal back in December, but as the opportunity to get a vaccine becomes real rather than hypothetical, it's been dropping across board.

      States are running from about 64% of doses administered (Alabama) to around 88% (Wisconsin); generally more rural states are toward the lower end of the spectrum, but it's harder to distr

    • In what state are they doing this? In California you have to prove residency, precisely because they don't want people traveling for vaccines. That potentially spreads the disease as well as messing up the allocation plans.

      • I know in Ohio I had to go to a retail pharmacy the next county over, they only thing they checked on the ID was that I was state of Ohio resident and met the current age requirement
    • Dude, come on. They can't fucking do that. You imagine the news articles?

      "Biden Administration refusing vaccines to Republicans"

    • Here in Central MA, the demand is high and the supply is very low. The state is intentionally not sending doses to "wealthy suburbs" or doctors' offices. They even cut off the supply to my town's Senior Center vaccine clinic, which was getting under100 doses a week, and told the seniors they should drive to a stadium or clinic in an urban area. Many of those clinics are restricted to residents of those cities/towns only.

      MA top priority for vaccine access after healthcare, 1st responders, and seniors, was

      • MA top priority for vaccine access after healthcare, 1st responders, and seniors, was prisoners and union members.

        Every additional strata of prioritization adds to the delay and causes confusion for all involved.

        WV went for simple age-based prioritization, and it's worked out great. Why should a healthy 24 year-old teacher running zoom classes from her home be prioritized over a 67 year-old asthmatic man with a bad heart?

        Politics.

    • I wish they could find a way to identify counties where a greater percentage of the population are eager to take the vaccine.

      You can treat it as a network flow problem. Have each area report back how many vaccines they've utilized, and the ones that have utilized more, will get more. Like a TCP flow control problem.

      Incidentally, that's how vaccines have reportedly been flowing out to states.

  • by Jason Earl ( 1894 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @01:57PM (#61201986) Homepage Journal
    Biden's arm is really going to hurt. That's a lot of shots.
  • It feels strange (Score:2, Insightful)

    by AlanObject ( 3603453 )

    It is almost as if there is someone competent running the government that also wants the government to function.

    • There was... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      It is almost as if there is someone competent running the government that also wants the government to function.

      That was last year, you don't seriously think Biden could have had anything to do with vaccine production yet, do you?

      Because of Trump, the U.S. preordered hundreds of millions of doses, which got manufacturing ramped up way before Biden was even president. They were already going to be delivering over 200 million doses by bidens "100 days" just like Biden proclaimed a goal of "1 million doses a

      • Despite meddling by Trump, the U.S. preordered hundreds of millions of doses

        There. Fixed it for you. At what does your disillusion stop? Trump lied constantly and deliberately and you still ignore all of them.

        • Trump ordered the vaccine doses in early summer, he did nothing to prevent the orders going thru.

          Are you still upset because of his crowd size claims at his inauguration?

    • by Munchr ( 786041 )

      No, this isn't evidence of competence. I'm not saying he's not, because it's easy to demonstrate he's far more qualified and competent than Trump ever was, but this whole "goal" of 200 million shots is smoke and mirrors. The US was already on track to exceed 100 million doses before he even took office, so it was an easy goal to announce. With the additional dosing centers still being set up around the country, the US is already providing 1.6 million doses a day. So the US was already on track to exceed th

      • No, this isn't evidence of competence. I'm not saying he's not, because it's easy to demonstrate he's far more qualified and competent than Trump ever was, but this whole "goal" of 200 million shots is smoke and mirrors

        US purchases 200M additional doses of Moderna and Pfizer /BioNTech (February 12, 2021) [biopharmadive.com]. What do you mean by smoke and mirrors?

        The US was already on track to exceed 100 million doses before he even took office, so it was an easy goal to announce. With the additional dosing centers still being set up around the country, the US is already providing 1.6 million doses a day. So the US was already on track to exceed the 200 million mark long before Biden even announced his new goal.

        That article says total orders of 600M doses to cover 300M Americans. This article says that Moderna alone will provide the additional new doses of 100M by July 2021 [modernatx.com]

      • Biden is including the 28 million injections (including his own!) that took place before he took office, snd pretending he's started at zero on day one.

        He started at 28 million, so his promise to make 72 million more injections in 100 days was laughable.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:05PM (#61202030)

    As of Friday, 100 million coronavirus vaccinations had been given since Biden was inaugurated. That benchmark -- which Biden set as his original target Dec. 8 -- was reached on his 59th day in office. After a slower-than-expected rollout under former President Donald Trump, the pace of vaccinations in the United States has rapidly increased and has been averaging about 2.5 million doses per day in the past week.

    False. The vaccine rollout, assembled under the Trump administration was already happening as Biden took office and was already going to hit 100 million doses by that date. Biden did nothing here. Way to try to rewrite history!

    • by maladroit ( 71511 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:23PM (#61202104) Homepage

      When asked about covid, Trump literally said "I take no responsibility."

      I think we should honor his wishes.

    • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:32PM (#61202142)

      was already going to hit 100 million doses by that date

      Based on what? Hopes and dreams? Decree by the orange moron? Biden took office and diverted a fuckton of *additional* resources to this rollout. Trump gets credit where credit is due: He spent some money to secure some doses. But he was utterly fucking useless at distributing the vaccine. And who can blame him, he was too busy trying to overthrow democracy to govern.

    • The real TDS (Score:2, Insightful)

      by bussdriver ( 620565 )

      The Real Trump Derangement Syndrome is that of his supporters! Think about it, the extremely deranged ones (like Q-tards) make it obvious which groups of people are deranged not even addressing their deranged leader who any reasonable unbiased person could call deranged. They are all deranged FOR and/or BY Trump. If you were going to call the cult-like syndrome these people all have in common something... you could reasonable call it Trump Derangement Syndrome.

      Like most Trump's verbal attacks; it's actua

    • by maladroit ( 71511 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:33PM (#61202152) Homepage

      The previous administration missed multiple vaccine targets:
      https://www.latimes.com/world-... [latimes.com]

      The US might have made the 100-day-100-million target with the pace from the Trump administration, but hitting the goal 41 days early is purely due to Biden:
      - invoking the defense production act.
      - making deals to increase production.
      - and not letting Jared ship supplies to his cronies (there are still several million doses that are not accounted for).

      • by GeekBoy ( 10877 )

        And is Biden had done it they would have just been "goals" not "targets" that nobody would complain about.

      • Biden is counting the 28 million vaccine injections he inherited from Trump.

        When Biden took the oath of office, America injected 1 million people.

        Subtract 28 million from Biden's claimed 100 million, snd you see all he had done is slightly improve on trumps numbers when he left office, about 1M/day.

        But sure, Biden's doing a great job signing for the vaccine deliveries Trump ordered and paid for last year.

        • https://www.nytimes.com/2021/0... [nytimes.com]

          The Biden administration:
          - invoked the Defense Production act to help Pfizer expand its facilities.
          - got a J&J subcontractor to switch to 24-hour operation so they could meet their obligations.
          - brokered a deal so Merck could fill & finish doses for J&J (it lets them allocate more doses for the US now).
          - increased funding and reimbursements for state & local vaccination sites.

  • by Somervillain ( 4719341 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:07PM (#61202044)
    If I told my boss, expect twice as much work done this Sprint, he'd be thrilled. Most of my coworkers have to report delays and asking people to lower their expectations. I have avoided most delays by working really hard and staying focused, but even then, I've never doubled estimates.

    After the last 4 years of failures, excuses...and really a pretty underwhelming last 20 years in general, this was unexpected and quite nice. It's nice to have elected a group who actually cares about governing once they get elected...not just basking in the glory of adoration from their rallies.
    • You know there's a difference between those who make the promises and those who have to fulfill them, yes?

      So let's represent what's really happening here: your boss is TELLING you that you need to be twice as productive. He's not going to pay you more, mind, he just wants to look good to the board of directors.
      Still feel the same warm fuzzies from that angle?

      Yes, it might be nice to have elected a group that cares about governing, but then the Democrats have never been short of promises, trinkets, shiny th

  • by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:39PM (#61202180) Journal

    "I know it's ambitious -- twice our original goal"

    Not to mention that your former goal "100 million in the first 100 days"...was exactly what Trump's administration had handed to him, about 1mill per day.

    Not that the sycophants in the press were reporting that, it's mere fact. SOMEONE might have noticed, eventually.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      Not to mention that your former goal "100 million in the first 100 days"...was exactly what Trump's administration had handed to him, about 1mill per day.

      What were Trump's goals again and did he meet them? Spoiler: No, he did not. [forbes.com] 7%. By December 31, 2020, the Trump administration achieved 7% of its own goals.

      • Obviously that percentage of goal is going vary widely at the beginning of the rollout, what a useless statistic. I thought engineers posted at slashdot....
        • What are you talking about? The Trump Administration's stated goal was 20M Americans vaccinated by end of 2020. Only 7% received 1 dose by end of 2020 so you could argue that the Trump achieved 0% as few Americans were fully vaccinated.
  • They still don't want you to go about your normal lives without kowtowing to them in one way or another.

  • Nothing wrong with a goal of maintaining the current pace.

    There is much unrecognized value in keeping things from breaking.

  • by kenh ( 9056 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @02:59PM (#61202268) Homepage Journal

    The United States vaccinated nearly 30 million people before Biden took the oath of office, and averaged a million injections/day for several days before Inauguration Day.

    When he said "100 million vaccinations (injections) in first hundred days," he was starting at about 28 million on day one.

    Also, every vaccine injection to date is with vaccine doses bought and paid for last summer by the Trump administration - the vaccine doses Biden ordered are expected this summer.

    So "Yay!" Team Biden has picked up the pace since he took office, but he did not start from Zero - claims of "no meetings" during transition are false (over 300 meetings held), snd the "no plan for distribution" is provably false, since the previous administration somehow managed to maintain shipments to support 1M injections/day - how did they accomplish that?

    • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

      Who claimed there were "no meetings"?

      Clearly the Trump administration had no planning for rolling out the vaccine other than to buy some doses. There were reports of the manufacturers having doses with no where to ship them. Individual states had some planning, but a national plan was sorely needed.

    • The United States vaccinated nearly 30 million people before Biden took the oath of office, and averaged a million injections/day for several days before Inauguration Day.

      Citation needed

  • by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Friday March 26, 2021 @03:30PM (#61202398) Journal

    It's been two months since Biden took over and he has yet to go golfing. What's he been doing all this time if he hasn't been out on the links?

  • I'm not really sure what setting a higher goal is supposed to do. Were they not giving out the vaccine as quickly as they could before the higher goal? The distribution plan was developed under Trump (not by Trump) and it hasn't really changed under Biden. It isn't as if the President actually has any sort of direct functional role in any of this.

    Sadly he MIGHT have had a role in the fast approval of the J&J vaccine. I say sadly because it is significantly less effective and we should be focusing on pro
  • There is no more USA Federation. The White House is running the show like a Republic. In the former USA Federation, Health Care was a State responsibility.

Somebody ought to cross ball point pens with coat hangers so that the pens will multiply instead of disappear.

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