Two doses and time are needed.

We need to be careful and deliberate.  There seems to be a growing sense now there is a vaccine, and we are protected when we get it.  Israel has had issues with people getting infected after the first dose.  It looks like the first vaccine only gives about 50% of the protection needed.  So please don’t go out thinking yourself protected after the first dose.  That is how Israel had a large increase in COVID cases after they started rolling out the vaccines.  From my friend in Israel, they are having problems with people getting the vaccine and thinking they are good to go.  What isn’t in that article is the protection from the second shot is not instant either.  It still seems to take about 2 to 3 weeks after the second shot for full protection to kick in.  That in combination with people thinking they are protected after 1 shot has lead to their recent surge in cases.

In the face of this, we have things like Gov. Hogan demanding MD schools reopen by March 1 or else…However, there isn’t enough of the vaccine to vaccinate the teachers at the moment (even a first dose).  They are being told to try calling again starting Feb 1.  Well, if all of them got their first dose Feb1 and their second dose at the earliest time on Feb 14, they would not get the full protection in time to open March 1.  What do you think are the odds we will get the best case roll out with no days of delay?  This ignores kids as spreaders of the virus to their homes as we learn more about the more contagious variants currently spreading through the U.S. We already lack enough teachers in our schools, especially for special needs children.

We need to be careful.  The end is now in sight, but it is a spec on the horizon, a still distant destination.  At least we now have a direction to progress towards, but we have a long way to to get to heard immunity of 80%.  We need the steady increase of production and distribution of the vaccine.  As the Washington Post editorial today pointed out, Biden’s stated goal of 100 million doses administered in the first 100 days is only 1 million a day.  To reach heard immunity levels of 80%, we would not reach our goal until the summer…of 2022.  The 100 million in 100 days needs to be the start up of an expanding effort to vaccinate our society.    

However, I fear this is another case of the public not understanding the scope of the problem and the project needed to get us to our destination of herd immunity. We hear 100 million and think this is great because it represents a pace faster than we are currently moving. However, this is another case of us not internalizing large numbers.

When I wrote before about our understanding of large numbers, I said the best way I have seen to get us to understand large numbers is either in relationship to another number we kind of understand or as a percent change. So let us look at this aspirational goal in terms of a percent completion towards the goal of herd immunity.

For herd immunity, we need 80 percent of the population to get the shots. We have 330 million people in the U.S. So we need 264 million people to get a total of 528 million doses. If you get rid of that pesky “million” in the doses needed and doses given, suddenly we are left with the daunting thought of progressing 0.18% of the way towards our goal every day. To put it in an easier to digest way, we need 528 days to reach our goal.

I cringe thinking of another year and a half of this covid isolation. Granted, some people have already gotten the vaccine or had COVID 19. So we are not starting our count towards 264 at 0, but we are only a couple steps down the road to where we need to be. We also do not need to make it all the way to 264 before we start reopening. That is simply a safety target. However, we need to make the 100 million in 100 days merely the first step of our run, a step towards getting up to speed. We have a long way to go, and need to be clear our goal is more ambitious than 100 million in 100 days.

So if you have a chance to get us another step towards 264, please take it both for your own health and everyone else’s. Like wearing a mask, it is not just about you. It’s a step towards a healthier society trying to push through COVID19.