California is expanding COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to everyone 16 and older on April 15, and while this next step in the state's vaccine rollout is exciting, it will be hindered by a limited, even shrinking, supply of shots.
With a huge surge in demand for appointments expected later this week, public health officials are advising residents to be patient as there will not be enough vaccine appointments for everyone who is newly eligible.
If you find yourself struggling to be patient as you look for an appointment and don't find one, here's a rundown of the supply-and-demand numbers in California that might help you better understand the situation.
There are about 18.7 million people ages 16 to 49 living in California, according to the state. This marks the largest age group to become eligible for the vaccine, with 6.5 million Californians in the age 65 and over age group and 7.2 million Californians in the age 50 to 64 one.
While some of the people in the newest age group have likely already been vaccinated because they're health care workers or fell into another category that made them eligible earlier in the rollout, there will still be millions and millions of individuals who can get inoculated for the first time beginning Thursday.
This week (April 11) the state expects to receive 15% fewer vaccines from the federal government, and 5% less than that next week (April 18), mainly the result of a manufacturing mishap that ruined 15 million doses of the one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine late last month.
Last week, the state received 2.4 million doses from the federal government, and of those, 1.5 million doses were allocated for first shots (Pfizer or Moderna) or the one-dose J&J shot. This week, the projection for the state allocation is 2 million doses, with 1 million of those for first-time vaccine recipients. Next week, the state is expecting to receive 1.9 million doses, and only 956,000 doses will be available for people wanting to get their first shot.
"To put this into perspective, the supply projections for this week and next week are approximately what the state received in the second half of March," Darrel Ng, a spokesperson for the state's COVID-19 Vaccine Task Force, wrote in an email.
It's also important to remember that there are multiple vaccine supply streams coming into the state, Ng said. The numbers above don't include doses the federal government distributes directly to pharmacies and other entities, which account for about 30% of available doses in California.
While the vaccine supply may sound discouraging, and it could take days, weeks or even a month or two for newly eligible residents to get an appointment, it's likely most people will be able to find a time slot to get a shot by the end of May.
President Joe Biden assured the American public in a press briefing last Tuesday that “by the end of May, the vast majority of adult Americans will have gotten at least their first shot.”
The White House COVID-19 Response Team said Friday both Pfizer and Moderna are on track to meet their commitment of each delivering a total of 200 million doses by the end of May. Officials said Friday Johnson & Johnson promised nearly 100 million vaccine doses by the end of May. It's unknown whether this allocation will be impacted with the new development on Tuesday. The U.S. is recommending a “pause” in administration of the single-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine "out of an abundance of caution) to investigate reports of rare and potentially dangerous blood clots.
While Ng said he couldn't provide an official projection on the state's total vaccine allocation between now and May 31, he offered some back-of-the-envelope math.
"CA is 12% of the nation’s population," Ng wrote in an email. "With 200M Pfizer + 200M Moderna +100M J&J doses by the end of May, CA should have enough supply to fully vaccinate 36M people (assuming a proportional allocation). There are 32.6M people 16+ in the state."
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