GREENSBORO, N.C. — The big question we get every day from viewers is when will I be able to get the vaccine? We know the next phase of frontline essential workers will start on March 10th. But what about everyone else?
The North Carolina Institute for Public Health built an interactive map of how many people are eligible for the vaccine in each group using Census data. It's a lot of numbers, but stick with us because it shows all the work that has to happen before you can get your vaccine.
In group one of health care workers and people in long-term care, there were 618,000 people. Group 2, 65 and up, 1.6 million. And group 3, frontline essential workers like teachers and people in the foodservice industry, another 2.6 million.
Add that all up: that's 4.8 million people. You can subtract the 1.3 million who already received their first dose and that means 3.5 million people still qualify for their shot before group 4 of adults at high risk for exposure and increased risk of severe illness.
At the current rate of 18,665 people being vaccinated every day according to a review of vaccine data by 2 Wants To Know, it would be August 31 before all those people get their shots and we move into group 4.
But how fast we get people vaccinated depends on how many doses the federal government sends our way. And Doctor Anthony Fauci says they are ramping up production now, so that everyone can be vaccinated by mid-summer.
"By July, we will have enough,” he said. “We will have the 600 million doses that we contracted for from two companies. It is very likely that before then, we are going to start vaccinating people who are outside of the priority groups and essentially represent anyone and everyone."
And once you get the vaccine? Will you need it every year? Our Verify team dug in to find out: