For weeks we’ve been hearing the federal government is rapidly ramping up vaccine production and distribution. Time and again we’re told the vaccines are coming in higher numbers than the week before. Week after week that’s not actually happening.
In fact, through Tuesday, Florida had eleven consecutive days in which more Floridians had been vaccinated with a second dose of a COVID vaccine than a first dose. This is notable because one has to wait three weeks after obtaining a Pfizer vaccine before receiving a second dose. In other words, it’s hard evidence that we had more first doses available a month ago than we have most recently.
No, this isn’t a capacity issue. Just last week I estimated the state’s daily capacity at around 250,000 total vaccines in a day. Our peak day for vaccinations remains January 22nd with just over 103k administered. Here’s a look at the number of first doses administered in Florida by week for January.
- 1/4: 337,742
- 1/10: 387,941
- 1/17: 376,575
- 1/24: 195,608
- 1/31: 240,556
Our most recent pacing has been even worse with only 24,225 first doses administered the first two days of this week. What I can tell you, however, is that the supply of first dose vaccines available to Floridians has plummeted up to now since the Biden administration took over.
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