Though COVID-19 vaccines are now open to all US adults, vaccinations in the country are on the decline.
In the past week, the rolling seven-day average of daily vaccinations has slipped nearly 11 percent, falling from a high on April 13 of nearly 3.4 million shots per day to the current average of just over 3 million. And scores of counties across the US have begun
declining shipments of vaccine doses, according to reporting by The Washington Post.
It's the first time since the nationwide vaccination effort began last December that the country has seen a sustained decline in vaccinations—except for a brief dip in February that was linked to winter weather-related delays and cancellations.
Multiple factors may explain the current drop in shots. The dip coincides with a pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. That pause may explain some—but not all—of the drop over the past week. However, health officials say extra supplies of Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines have largely compensated for the Johnson & Johnson pause. Plus, recent polls suggest that the pause has not significantly affected vaccine hesitancy.
Instead, experts suspect that the biggest factor for the decline is simply
waning demand. With
52 percent of US adults having already received at least one shot and more than 34 percent being fully vaccinated, the country may be running low on adults eager for a shot.
In
a recent survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation, 20 percent of Americans said they would definitely not get a vaccine or only get one if it was required. An additional 17 percent surveyed said they would "wait and see" about getting vaccinated. Likewise, in
an Axios-Ipsos Coronavirus poll released April 20, a total of 30 percent of respondents said they were "not very likely" or "not at all likely" to get a vaccine. That total is unchanged from before the Johnson & Johnson pause.