Who’s Rolling Out the COVID-19 Vaccine the Fastest?

You have probably heard that Britain is kicking our butt when it comes to vaccinating their population from COVID-19. And they surely are. But before you think the ghost of Isaac Newton must be helping them along, take a look at this chart:

I have placed three large red dots at the point approximately two weeks after mass vaccinations started in each country (December 7 for Britain; December 15 for the US; and approximately January 4 for the EU). As you can see, just about everyone is performing equally well: after two weeks, about 1 percent of the population has been vaccinated. And don’t be fooled by Europe. The reason for the wide spread in results is primarily because rollouts were scheduled differently in different countries. (Although the population-weighted average for all of Europe is a bit over 1 percent, which is slightly better than either the UK or the US.)

The big outlier, which I didn’t show on the chart, is Denmark, which is around 2 percent. The reason is twofold: (1) many countries rejected the Pfizer vaccine because of its extreme refrigeration requirements. Denmark set up cold storage units early and took all of the Pfizer vaccine it could get. (2) They didn’t hold back half their supply for second jabs. They just distributed every vial they had as soon as they got them.

Anyway, the gist of all this is that, roughly speaking, everyone is rolling out the vaccine about as well as everyone else.¹ The only difference is how long they’ve been doing it.

¹Except for Denmark, Israel, and Bahrain, which are kicking ass.

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate