5 Highest-Population States' COVID-19 Vaccine Dose Allocations

Pfizer began moving the first shipments of its COVID-19 vaccine out to United Parcel Service and FedEx hubs just a week ago. The federal Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization to Moderna, the maker of a second COVID-19 vaccine, Friday. Shipments of the Modern vaccine began going out today. One sign of public excitement about the vaccine: The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has posted a public database that tracks allocation of and shipments of every dose.

Resources

• A batch of CDC COVID-19 vaccine distribution data is available here.
• The Community Profile Report series is available here.
• An article about what COVID-19 vaccine news does to stock prices is available here.

A complete Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination takes two doses. Most states and territories have received an allocation of about one first-dose Pfizer dose for every 60 to 70 residents. The country has, for example, allocated 975 first-doses Pfizer doses to the U.S. Virgin Islands for the week of Dec. 21. California has received a total allocation of 560,625 first-dose Pfizer doses for the first two weeks. Many discussions about the vaccinations focus on who should get access to the limited supply of vaccine doses first. One basic question is about what role state lines should play. Right now, most states are getting allocations that correlate closely with their populations. Meanwhile, the CDC's new Community Profile Reports show that some states have many more COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents than others. The result: Even though the ratio of state population to Pfizer vaccine dose allocations is about the same for most states, the ratio of dose allocations to level of COVDI-19 pandemic activity varies widely from state. A comparison of state new COVID-19 case counts for the past seven days with the first two weeks of Pfizer first-dose vaccines allocations shows that, for the five highest-population states, the ratio ranges from  4.1 to 1 to 1.5 to 1. A low dose-to-case ratio might mean a vaccine needs a bigger allocation of doses to get its outbreak under control. For a look at the five most populous states' dose-to-case ratio data, see the slideshow above. — Read Vaccine Hopes Spark Fund Managers' Optimism: BofA, on ThinkAdvisor. — Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.