Contagion: The Vaccination Big Number Challenge

 

Today President Biden raised the goal for administering vaccinations from 1 million to 1.5 million per day.  That is a noble goal.  I hope we can get to it, actually I am hoping we can get it so I can be vaccinated sooner rather than later.

Let’s put some perspective around these numbers.  First, off let’s just consider 1 million dose a day.  If a dose is 1 injection and ever one needs 2, it would take 660 days or a year and ten months to vaccinate everyone.  If by a dose they mean 2 injections, then it would take almost a year.

I am in the 1b classification for vaccinations in Illinois.  The state started with the 1b’s as of yesterday, January 25.  The same day, I heard on the local public radio station that the population of the 1b class is 3 million here in Illinois.  At the current time, Illinois is receiving 150,000 doses a week.  At 150,000 doses a week, it will take the 20 weeks or about 5 months to get all of us vaccinated if a dose means two injections.  If a dose means 1 injection it would take 10 months at the rate we are receiving the vaccine.  That seems too long with the more virulent strains predicted to be the dominant strain by March.

Illinois is 4% of the population of the United States.  Our share of 1 million vaccines a day would be 38,066.  If we bump up the national goal to 1.5 million vaccinations per day, the Illinois share of that would be 57,100.  150,000 doses of week is not enough to meet the old goal let alone the new one.  With the new goal, we would need 285,500 doses per week if we are vaccinating folks 5 days per week.  If we are to vaccinate 6 days a week, we would need 342,600 does per week.  We need more than double of what we are getting today.

Assuming that Illinois is a representative state, we have work to do to meet the President’s objective.  I am not privy to all the information, but I would ask the following questions:

• Can we make that many doses a day?
• Do we have dry ice and refrigeration capacity for warehousing and transporting that higher level of production and distribution?
• Do we have the ability to schedule and the facility and personnel capacity to vaccinate that number of people per day?
• For each of the above, what are the obstacles and how long would it take us to ramp up to the targeted rate.

The previous administration had a snappy name for their plan to develop and roll-out the vaccine.  They did a great job partnering with the pharmaceutical companies to develop the vaccines.  But at the end, they seemed more concerned with overturning the results of the election more than quickly rolling out the vaccine.  The folks in the new administration claim that there was no distribution strategy, and they have to develop one from scratch.  Accounting for the political exaggeration no doubt at play here, it is clear to me that the current distribution strategy is inadequate.

I would imagine this should be joint military and commercial operation.  The military is weel versed in quickly developing and implementing deployment plans.  I would probably put a military general with supply experience in charge.  I would have his #2 be a senior level corporate supply chain or logistics executive.  The goal is to develop a plan quickly, roll it out, and have monitor progress tightly.  They need to adapt and modify tactics and procedures to overcome the obstacles that will arise.  

We can do this.  Every aspect of the plan will be critical, but we can do this.  We have to do this.  We need to show ourselves and the world that we can do this.