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The United States now leads the world in the administration of Covid-19 vaccines, with more than 1.12 million doses administered in the first 10 days of its campaign, according to state-by-state data compiled by Bloomberg.
Currently, three states have vaccinated more than 1% of their population: North Dakota, West Virginia and Alaska. California leads in total vaccines with 128,000 vaccines.
The numbers fall short of the United States’ goal of administering 20 million shots in 2020, US officials acknowledged Wednesday.
That amount will be disbursed to the states before the end of the month, but not in time to be administered.
Vaccines from Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc are rolling out, initially targeting hundreds of thousands of healthcare workers across the country who have been fighting the virus on the front lines in hospitals.
The vaccines require two injections weeks apart to provide the highest level of protection.
The urgency increases as a wave of winter infections sweeps across the Northern Hemisphere. New variants of the disease have been detected in the UK and South Africa.
Mutations appear to make the virus more contagious and can increase infections among healthy young people. In the United States, more than 2,500 people die every day.
China, which has several homegrown vaccines, said on December 19 that it had reached the million-dose milestone. These figures include some people who have already taken the second dose. Russia has vaccinated 440,000 people.
Both countries went ahead in August by authorizing domestically produced vaccines before they had been fully tested.
The UK is also making rapid progress in delivering shots and is expected to provide an update on its count as early as Wednesday afternoon.
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