News Room

The U.S. government has invested billions of dollars in manufacturing, used a wartime act dozens of times to boost supplies and yet there’s still not enough COVID-19 vaccine on the way to meet demand — or even the government’s own goals for national immunization. President Joe Biden, in remarks at the National Institutes of Health this month, said the nation is “now on track to have enough supply for 300 million Americans by the end of July.” But at the current rate of production, Pfizer and Moderna will miss their targets of providing at least 100 million doses each by the end of March, let alone 200 million more doses each has promised by July.

Portland resident Richard Clarke, 70, isn’t sure if he’s officially registered to enter a weekly COVID-19 vaccination lottery for appointments available at the Oregon Convention Center. He said after registering at getvaccinated.oregon.gov, he hasn’t received an email or a text confirming that he’s in the pool of eligible residents -- even though the state has publicly said everyone who registers will. He also called 211 to verify, but the representative wasn’t able to give him an answer. Clarke said he’s also uneasy because contrary to what state and local officials announced more than a week ago, the state website still says, “This tool does not allow you to schedule a vaccination appointment.”

More than 50 million Americans have received at least one dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine. So far, Americans have been largely brand-agnostic, but that’s about to change as a new vaccine rolls out. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine has been hailed as a game changer. It requires only a single dose rather than two doses spaced weeks apart, and it does not need freezer storage, making it a natural fit for hard-to-reach rural areas and underserved communities with limited access to health care and storage facilities. But while many people are excited about the prospects of only one shot, the new vaccine is also getting backlash. Part of that is coming from lack of clarity about the vaccines’ efficacy numbers, and part of it is more nuanced.

The effort in the United States to produce and distribute a coronavirus vaccine appears to be a bright spot in the nation’s response to the pandemic. The U.S. has managed to get at least one dose to nearly 24 out of every 100 adults in the country. Only Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and the United Kingdom have done better. In total, over 54 million Americans have received at least one dose of the vaccine since vaccination began on Dec. 14. “I think when we look back at this, we will look at this as the turning point where we started to get things right and make some progress,” said Dr. Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer at the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

North Carolina is among the best-performing U.S. states when it comes to distributing vaccines evenly among Black and white residents. That’s partly because the state is by far the best at collecting demographic data. About 11% of North Carolina’s Black population has received at least one shot, compared with 17% of the state’s white residents, the Bloomberg Vaccine Tracker shows. That puts North Carolina in fourth place for the smallest spread between the two groups among states with the most comprehensive data sets. Other states might be doing as well or better than North Carolina in terms of equality, though huge numbers of incomplete records obscure the national picture.