How scarce will coronavirus vaccines be in the US?

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Instead of the 300 million doses the Trump administration originally promised before the end of the year, the two vaccine developers first in line for Food and Drug Administration approval — Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna — are expected to ship 35 million to 40 million doses total before January. Since both vaccines are supposed to be dispensed at two shots per person, that’s enough supply for no more than 20 million people. 

But even reaching that many people will take some time. The first batch of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine shipped from a Kalamazoo, Michigan, factory Sunday, following the FDA’s emergency use authorization Friday night, and will include only 2.9 million doses. 

The vaccine developers say efforts to meet their initial year-end targets are being hampered by shortages of raw ingredients. And while both Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech have vowed to ramp up production next year, the exact amount they’ll make still isn’t clear and the estimates keep shifting. Moderna currently says it’ll have 85 million to 100 million doses for the US ready in the first quarter of 2021; Pfizer plans to provide 50 million doses at the end of the second quarter and another 50 million in Q3, according to the Washington Post. 

We’ll learn more about the reality of vaccine distribution at the state level this week. The vaccines will land in 145 distribution centers across the country on Monday, 425 centers on Tuesday, and the last 66 on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.