Vaccines Delivered Vs. Used In Colorado: Feb. 8

COLORADO — As millions of Americans wait for their turn to receive a coronavirus vaccine and the nation’s leaders vow to ramp up distribution, states have differed in how much of their supply has been used so far.

In Colorado, 991,075 vaccine doses have been distributed, and 751,960 have been administered, so just under 76 percent of the deliveries to our state have gone into arms, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that is updated daily.

Around 207,951 people have received both doses in Colorado, according to the CDC. That means 3,611 out of every 100,000 Coloradans are inoculated.

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The country’s vaccination effort topped 50 million administered doses this week, as the Biden administration has said it will begin delivering vaccines directly to the nation’s most well-known pharmacy retailers. Beginning Thursday, the White House will deliver 1 million doses of vaccine per week to 6,500 retailers such as CVS and Walgreens, according to reports from Politico and others.

The increased vaccine distribution will be focused on areas that need it the most, said Jeff Zients, the head of President Joe Biden’s coronavirus team. Pharmacy sites have been selected based on their abilities “to reach some of the populations at risk for severe illness from COVID-19,” Zients said.

“This will provide more sites for people to get vaccinated in their communities,” he added. “This is a critical step to provide the public with convenient, trusted places to get vaccinated in their communities."

The vaccines sent to pharmacies will be in addition to the roughly 10.5 million doses sent to the states every week, according to reports. The 10.5 million is up by about 500,000 from previous weeks, The Associated Press has reported.

As of Wednesday, 55.9 million vaccine doses had been distributed in the country, with 33.8 million people receiving at least one dose. About 27.1 million have taken the first dose, and more than 6.4 million have received both doses of either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.

Only eight states and the District of Columbia have administered more than 11,000 doses per 100,000 residents as of Tuesday, the CDC said. North Dakota, South Dakota, Alaska, Vermont, Connecticut, West Virginia, New Mexico and Oklahoma are the states joining D.C. in reaching that threshold.

Nationally, the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine has been given about 18.2 million times and the Moderna vaccine about 15.5 million times.

The CDC has not yet released county-level data on vaccinations.