Maybe someone can explain the disconnect, because the following confuses me:
We are being told by the government that reaching herd immunity through vaccination is the key to getting back to normal. Though some are saying that this won't happen until August, September, even October or November! Even Fauci is saying "end of summer". The math on that doesn't seem to add up.
We are currently distributing about 1.18 million vaccines per day. There are 260 million Americans who are 16 and older, and those are the only people who can get the vaccine under the emergency use authorization. At that pace, we hit 70% by June 9th, 80% by June 30th, 85% by July 11th and 90% by July 22nd.
The federal government says the pace of distribution will increase by 16% going forward starting next week. Johnson and Johnson says they'll have 100 million vaccines available by the end of June and look to be coming online within 2-3 weeks. Every single major state says they have far more distribution capacity than they have vaccine, meaning that pace should accelerate when distribution accelerates.
Why are they talking in terms of August or September instead of May, June or July? If Biden hits his 1.5 million per day goal, vaccinating the rest of the population would take 157 days. You hit 70% by mid May, 80% by end of May, 90% by mid to late June. What am I missing? Are they expecting the pace of distribution to decline?