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 Today in health it, this story is vaccine distribution by the numbers. Really it's C Ovid 19 by the numbers. We will get into more of that in in just a second. My name is Bill Russell. I'm a former CIO for a 16 hospital system and creator of this week in Health IT a channel dedicated to keeping health IT staff current.

And engaged VMware was the first sponsor of this week in Health it, and now they're, they're the first sponsor of Today in Health. it. They've been committed to our mission of providing relevant content to health IT professionals since the start. They recently completed an executive study with MIT on the top healthcare.

Trends shaping it, resilience, covering how the pandemic drove unique transformation in healthcare. This is just one of the many resources they have for healthcare professionals. For this and several other great content pieces, check out vmware.com/go/healthcare. All right, today's story. I've done a bunch of vaccine distribution stories since starting the show, and this is far and away the leading story in healthcare, so that's why we've done it.

So I thought I would circle back and see if we can add a little color based on the numbers. Most of these numbers are straight from the C, d, C and other publicly available sources. I pulled these last week, so they might be a few days old if you're tracking it day by day. Uh, gimme a little slack on, on some of the numbers.

Here's some, here's some of the general stats. So US total cases, uh, 26,900,000, so covid cases 26 or 27 million for the most part. Uh, total deaths, 463,000 tests reported being completed. 308. Million 308 million tests have been done. Uh, vaccine. Total doses distributed 65 60 6 million. Total doses have been distributed, total doses administered 44 million.

So these are total cumulative Trump administration and in Biden administration. So if you're tracking this based on the first a hundred days, I'll get to that number in a minute. But for the most part, this is cumulative. 66 million total doses distributed. 44.7 million total doses administered. A number of people receiving one or more doses, 33.

34 million, roughly number of people receiving two doses over 10 million to date, or at least at the time of this report. These are cumulative numbers. I'm on record as saying the a hundred million doses in the first a hundred days is well within reach for this president and even call it sandbagging a little bit.

Uh, don't get me wrong, there are logistical challenges to overcome health equity issues to be addressed and vaccine availability to ensure, but in general, the vaccine availability is almost a lock plus. There are, I think, three more vaccines in stage three clinical trials at this point. So there's gonna be plenty of vaccine, and we already have 600 million doses on order.

The equity issues are being addressed by using . Things like federal and state resources to augment the healthcare workers on the ground. And as with most projects, the logistics just get better with time and people start to figure out the systems and they come up with workarounds. So we have really smart people coming up with workarounds, how to trade the, uh, Pfizer vaccine for the Moderna vaccine based on, uh, freezer availability and those kind of things.

That plus, you know, the checkbook is open. So money is almost no object right now. It's not like, it's not like people are arguing, Hey, you're spending too much money on Covid. That's that that ship has sailed. How much money do you need? Go ahead and spend it. So how are we doing? Remember, the goal is a hundred million shots in arms in a hundred days as measured from the day of the inauguration.

These stats are from day 22, so 27 million doses have been administered in from 321 sites. In, in short, close to 10% of the population has been vaccinated as a whole, and the administration is averaging close to a million per day. That's what they need to average over those a hundred days to hit the a hundred million.

And that number is only going to climb. I, I believe the last seven day average is, is well above that million. It might even be be close to the 1.5 million number. Uh, so this administration will get to take a victory lap. I believe they deserve to take a victory lap. But it was really theirs to screw up, I think, and they didn't screw up.

So they deserve the victory lap and they should take it. What about the, the larger problem that we anticipate, which is people not wanting to get the vaccine, or when the lines go away, supply at some point is going to outstrip demand. How is that looking? All right, so again, we're going back to the C-D-C-C-D-C report.

This is Bill Russell's, three main groups of people. I'm sure there's a lot of nuance to this. There's the sign me up group. There's the wait and see group. And the, the over my dead body group, right? So, excuse the metaphor, but, uh, it looks like roughly 50% have moved into this. Sign me up if there's a line.

I wanna be in that line. 20% are in the wait and see how it goes. What they're looking for is, is there, uh, adverse impacts? Does anyone turn into a zombie? I guess if this is the zombie apocalypse and the longer that goes without happening, that 20% will get in line and 30% are saying never. At least today to add more color.

You know that's 320 million people you're talking. 160 million are in line or want to be in line. 64 million will get in line once they believe it is safe and 96 million people don't care that you have a line and have no intention of getting in that line. I'm sure this group is more nuanced than that.

It's perhaps there are people that are not taking it for health reasons. I've talked to some of those people where they're like, look, I've got a lot of complications here, sort of working with my doctor to determine when the best time to take this vaccine, if there's a right time to take it. Because they have, you know, they have multiple issues going on in their health.

Uh, there's religious reasons and I'm sure there are other groups within that category. I'm not saying that everyone should get the vaccine, I'm just saying that there's. There, there are groups with valid reasons to be concerned who are in that group, so I wouldn't lump everybody into a bad category just 'cause they're not lining up to get the vaccine.

Alright, the report goes on. Uh, Des despite decreases in Nont intent, younger adults, non-Hispanic, black adults and adults with less education and income and without health insurance continue to have highest estimates of non intent to receive the COVID 19 vaccination. So did you catch that? So there's decreases in non intent, but younger adults, non-Hispanic.

Black adults and adults with less education and income in without health insurance have the highest estimates of non intent to receive covid 19 vaccination. So there's, there's still work to do, there's still education to happen and groups to do outreach to. How are we going to drive above the 200 million number, which is roughly, you know, the 160 plus the 60 million.

That are going to get in line once they, you know, feel it's safe. And unfortunately it looks like coercion is gonna be our strategy. At least that's, you know, if you read some of these stories, that's what it looks like. A negative c ovid 19 test. Requirement for domestic air travel. iste still being considered by the White House.

You could see, and I think they're already talking about this, something in a passport that says, I've had my covid vaccine in order to fly internationally. You might see that in domestic travel. I hope not, but you might see that, you know, that's on the federal, uh, guidelines. But you know, I think we're gonna see this play out across the country as we weigh one group's rights.

To not have the vaccine versus one group's rights to feel safe. You know, your kids will have to get the C Ovid 19 vaccine to go to school. You may have to get the vaccine yourself to attend events at school. You get the picture. Uh, signs may go into stores or restaurants. We only serve the vaccinated. I mean, I'm sort of painting this.

Or well in future, but, uh, there's a potential that we could head in that direction there. There's a, whenever you put fear and safety in, people have a tendency to, uh, take that over the line. So we'll have to keep an eye on that. But, you know, I'll leave that to the pundits to talk about. This is a health it show after all.

So how are we doing with testing? Uh, as I said earlier, about 310 million tests have been administered. So at various times during this process, we didn't have enough testing. That still may be true in some locations and there may be cost issues in others, but I, I'll tell you that my family has received four covid tests in the past two weeks at a nominal cost across three different states.

I know that's anecdotal information, but I think it's representative of the availability of the test at this point. What about overworked healthcare workers? Well, here's what we got. So at the president's direction, FEMA has increased its support to states, tribes, and territories for vaccination sites.

FEMA has already obligated 3.16 billion to states, tribes, and territories. I. And Washington DC for vaccination sites. As the number of states with obligation increases, we will work alongside other federal agencies to provide federal support for critical staffing supplies and other shortfalls. So, CD, C, uh, I'm sorry, FEMA is actually stepping into the gap.

So FEMA's assisting with vaccination in several states. The US military National Guard is supporting FEMA in their efforts, supplying medical staff logistics support. There are some hotspots that are getting some special attention. You have California and New Jersey, Texas, and there's other major metros in addition that they're supporting

But there's also the underserved areas like tribes in Arizona and whatnot, where they're stepping in. So, uh, FEMA has also published a community vaccination center playbook, so that is now available for distribution and, uh, utilizing that playbook to set that up in communities across the country. We're not hearing much in the way of.

Critical supply shortages. I'm sure there are hotspots on this as well, but in general, those are supply chain issues, just getting it to the right place. This is being monitored at the health systems, it's being monitored at most states and, and FEMA on a national level. So it's just, it's a matter of just making sure that the stuff is in the right place.

So we're not really hearing about shortages. How are we doing with hospital capacity again, uh, mostly anecdotal at this point. Uh, there are spots where it is acute, but those are generally in rural and underserved locations. There are some metros where they're monitoring ICU bed capacity because it's above 70%.

Some of those that I've heard about are Texas markets, uh, California, Florida, Maryland. Uh, and anytime I hear Maryland, I assume that's gonna spill over into DC as well. What's my so what on this? So, you know, as with every story, I try to do a so what? And Mo this was mostly, uh, an information dump, but I will say this, we weren't ready for the pandemic when it hit.

We may have modeled it, but we didn't model it based on a global pandemic. I. We've had close to 27 million cases in the US and as we said earlier, about 467,000 deaths. According to the numbers that I'm looking at this, this was unlike anything we anticipated. We really weren't ready. I I like what Dr.

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