Source page: McKinsey & Company
Commentary
COVID-19 herd immunity for America in 2021? Sure, if we can triple the pace of annual flu vaccinations
COVID-19 | Public Health | North America
February 9, 2021 – To acquire COVID-19 herd immunity, the United States needs more than three times as many vaccine doses as for the annual flu shot and twice as many doses per month as the H1N1 flu vaccine drive in 2009, mainly due to double-dose requirements for some COVID-19 vaccines.
To read the article, see “The risks and challenges of the global COVID-19-vaccine rollout,” January 26, 2021.
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Visual form
Three-panel bar comparison chart.
Layout / body structure
The chart is arranged as one horizontal row of three mini-panels separated by thin vertical dividers. Read it left to right from doses required, to vaccine administrators, to vaccine staffing, while comparing Flu, H1N1, and COVID-19 in each panel.
What is being compared
The chart compares three vaccination drives: seasonal flu, H1N1 flu, and the proposed COVID-19 rollout. It does that across three operational dimensions at once: annual doses, the number of vaccine administrators, and the total staffing needed.
Measurement system
The left panel uses millions of doses annually, and the middle and right panels use counts of full-time personnel. Bar heights show relative scale, while printed labels anchor the exact values and ranges for each campaign.
Visible structure inside the graphic
Each panel contains three color-coded bars in the same order: Flu in light blue, H1N1 in darker blue, and COVID-19 in dark navy with a gray extension showing the upper end of the range. The repeated structure makes it easy to scan the same three categories across all three operational measures.
Main takeaway from the visual
COVID-19 demands a much larger vaccination effort than either flu benchmark in every panel, not just in doses but also in the labor required to deliver those doses. The COVID-19 bars dominate all three panels, which makes the scale jump visually unmistakable.
Key standout values or extremes
Doses required rise from 80 million for Flu and 156 million for H1N1 to 375 to 535 million for COVID-19. Vaccine administrators rise from 9,524 and 18,533 to 37,100 to 53,100, and vaccine staffing rises from 23,810 and 46,382 to 111,500 to 159,200.
Controls / sequence, when applicable
This is a static chart image with no in-chart controls to operate.
Companion media, when applicable
There is no separate companion audio or video; the chart image is the full visual on this page.