Florida’s vaccine supply has plummeted under the Biden administration
Bottom Line: President Regan’s “trust but verify” comes to mind. 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 happened. 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 and four weeks before a second dose of the Moderna vaccine can be administered. In other words, it’s hard evidence that we had more first doses available a month ago than we have most recently. Not good. And 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:
- 12/20: 82,451
- 12/27: 99,348
- 1/4: 337,742
- 1/10: 387,941
- 1/17: 376,575
- 1/24: 195,608
- 1/31: 240,556
The first two weeks of the Biden administration resulted in a 38% decline in first doses received by the state of Florida. Our most recent pacing has been even worse with only 24,225 first doses administered the first two days of this week. We’ve been told over and over again that the vaccines are coming and even every larger numbers. I hope that’s the case starting today. 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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