Everyone I know wants life to return to what we regarded as normal before the Coronavirus pandemic, a scourge that in just over one year has claimed more than 2.2 million lives, triggered a global economic calamity and decimated international travel. It is generally accepted that without incurring unacceptable levels of ongoing infection, illness and death, life can return to the way it was only once the population reaches herd immunity.
Herd immunity results when a sufficiently high proportion of individuals are immune to the disease through vaccination or by surviving an infection. Worldwide herd immunity through vaccination has never been tried. This Bloomberg website keeps track of the effort by country and by state and other jurisdictions within the United States. Below is the information it provides for March 4, 2021.
Current vaccination rates are disappointing but are improving.
The color coding shows relative progress among countries. Go to the website and mouse over a country to see its statistics. A total of seven vaccines are now available for public use, in limited quantities, in at least 111 countries.
The chart below list countries by number of vaccine doses administered. See the website for the complete list.
Globally, the latest vaccination rate is 6,582,835 doses per day, on average. At that rate, it would take an estimated 4.7 years to cover 75% of the Earth’s population of 7.8 billion with a two-dose vaccine.
The daily average vaccination rate continues to climb thankfully. Delivering billions of vaccines to stop the spread of Covid-19 worldwide will be one of the greatest logistical challenges ever undertaken. Israel leads in terms of doses per 100 people.
The United States leads in terms of the number of doses given, but there is wide variation by state and by location within states.
Go to the website and mouse over a state to see its statistics. Across the U.S., 24.9 doses have been administered for every 100 people, and 75% of the shots delivered to states have been administered
These are the states doing the best in terms of total doses administered (not as a percentage of the population). The website lists all states, territories, and other jurisdictions.
Vaccinating roughly 70% to 85% of the population would enable a return to normalcy, according to U.S. infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci. In the U.S., the latest vaccination rate is 2,042,676 doses per day, on average. At that rate, it will take an estimated 6 months to cover 75% of the population with a two-dose vaccine.
The good news is the average daily doses continues to climb and the Johnson & Johnson one dose vaccine is now becoming available. The U.S. should reach heard immunity by the begining of summer if not sooner, assuming people actually get vaccinated when the opportunity arises.
Final Thoughts
I plan to track the progress from month to month of the enormous and historic effort to vaccinate 7.8 billion people and end the Coronavirus pandemic. The world is growing more connected everyday. The Coronavirus won’t be the last pandemic to threaten lives and livelihoods worldwide.
Views on vaccines and getting vaccinated vary from person to person. For what it’s worth, I encourage everyone to get vaccinated when they have a chance. I think we will be doing ourselves and our neighbors a favor.
Salsaworldtraveler'sblog 
Here they are starting to vaccine teachers so that school could go offline in June or July. But I guess it takes years before most of the population are vaccinated.
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I hope the process speeds up. Stay safe.
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I feel so lucky to be in the UK where our vaccine programme is going so well – I really hope more people sign up to take it and we can learn to live with this virus without it affecting our lives so much!
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UK is one of the best as far as making vaccines available. Herd immunity is the goal (around 75% – 80% vaccinated and we can get back to a new normal. Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
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has the world ever seen such a massive, global, coordinated effort to do something for everyone on earth? it seem quite impressive to me, even though our state (PA) is not doing so well…
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This effort is a first. There will be many lessons learned. Some expect pandemics like coronavirus will happen a lot more often than previously. PA will improve. There may be vaccine surpluses in a few months.
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hopefully the WHO will convene a conference for all countries to share what was learned from the COVID 19 pandemic, and how we can improve the next time there is a pandemic.
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That is a great idea. I wish them luck in keeping politics out of it.
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that will be a challenge…
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The distribution process here in the US has been chaotic. The lack of any sound public health system has led to a distribution debacle with some of the most vulnerable still not able to get vaccinated. Insane.
Then we have the Biden administration cranking up the vaccines available and working flat-out to produce the vaccine and get it to people and then we have places like Texas and Mississippi ready to undermine the whole effort by spreading the disease as fast as possible as if in a race to see which will win – infection or vaccine.
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You hit the nail on the head. I don’t understand the willingness to kill their own citizens that some politicians have. The good news is the distribution process is improving. Thanks much for your thoughts.
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I’m tracking on an Australian paper website and it has the world at .74% fully vaccinated – as of today worldwide. But thats FULLY vaccinated, as in received both doses. it’s been increasing by around 0.2% a day, sometimes 0.3%. Thats a pretty slow rate. but at some point it will catch up with all the first doses i suspect. They are saying once we get to 60% there is some sort of herd immunity but you need possibly 75% to be safer. long road and I think I’m following it as closely as you. 50 days per one percent is was slow we’d be at 7% or so by the end of the year. But it will speed up. Here they really took a cautious approach to starting the vaccinations. so we are not at a single person fully vaccinated. but we are nearly two weeks in to the process at least now. The Astra Zeneca will be our main one and they are saying possibly 12 weeks apart. so apart from those who has the pfizer it could be a long time before we see people FULLY vaccinated.
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At least your level of infection is low and it looks like life goes on except for no travel. from what I’ve seen there appears to be general progress in getting vaccines approved, manufactured and shots in arms. I’m betting the U.S. will have vaccines surpluses after the most vulnerable are vaccinated. A good portion of the rest will see no need to get vaccinated. Thanks Andy and here’s hoping we beat this virus soon.
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Hopefully the numbers start improving 🙏
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The numbers have improved a lot in the past month. We will see how things progress. Thanks for your comment.
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