As the death toll from COVID-19 hits staggering heights, countries are scrambling to deliver vaccines that could slow and eventually stop the spread of the coronavirus.
To do this successfully depends on a dizzying array of factors that depend on the completion of massive clinical trials so that vaccines that are still under development can be approved for the use, manufacture and shipping of billions of doses to ensure that rich nations do not monopolize the global vaccine supply and, crucially, actually get doses into people’s arms.
The following charts and maps will be updated to show the latest data on the launch of the largest vaccination program in history in the US and worldwide.
US
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About CDC
US vaccine adoption has been slower than expected so far. The Trump administration has set a goal of having 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2020. This goal was only achieved at the end of January. President Joe Biden has pledged to shoot 100 million shots in his first 100 days in office. Some experts have said that this is not going to be fast enough.
There are notable differences from state to state in how quickly vaccines are given to people. The two vaccines previously approved for emergency use in the USA, which were developed by Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna, are to be administered in two doses every two weeks. Some other vaccines, which are still in the pipeline for approval, would only require one dose. Ultimately, to vaccinate everyone in the United States, between 100 and 200 doses must be given per 100 people in each state and territory – or between 330 and 660 million doses for the nation as a whole. It’s a big logistical challenge.
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About CDC
Vaccines are distributed to individual federal states by the federal government. As the map above shows, some states are administering the vaccines they are supplied with faster than others.
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About CDC
Search or navigate through this table to find out how your state or territory is doing on these important vaccine adoption measures.
Schedule for the introduction of the vaccine
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About CDC
This graph shows the number of vaccines administered per 100 people for each state as of early 2021. The three most important states and the US national numbers are highlighted. Enter the name of another state or US territory in the search bar and select it to add it to the chart.
WORLD
Vaccine introduction by country
Countries in gray have either not started introducing the vaccine or have not reported any data. Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About our world in data
The US is ahead of most other countries in introducing vaccines. But among the great nations, Israel was the early leader. Search or navigate through this table to see how each nation is doing.
This table shows the number of vaccines administered per 100 people for each country as of early 2021. Type the name of a nation in the search bar and select it to compare its timeline to the US and the other three countries leading the world’s leading vaccine adoption. Only countries that have started their vaccination campaigns are shown.
Status of leading vaccines
Peter Aldhous / BuzzFeed News / About UNICEF / BuzzFeed News Research
This table documents the status of leading COVID-19 vaccines, shows approvals for use in the United States and other major markets, and prices from information on sales contracts compiled by UNICEF, when available.
Pfizer / BioNTech and Moderna’s two leading vaccines to date are based on a new technology that provides an RNA sequence that our own cells use to produce viruses, proteins that trigger an immune response.
The disadvantage is that these vaccines are more expensive than those made by splicing genetic material from the coronavirus into a deactivated version of another virus, such as those made by the Anglo-Swedish company AstraZeneca, based on research from Oxford University, and the Russian Gamaleya Research Institute.
Other leading vaccines are based on inactivated versions of the coronavirus, a long-standing approach to making vaccines, or on subunits of proteins from the virus.
Jeremy Singer-Vine contributed to coverage for this story.
