It’s been three weeks since people started getting vaccinated in North America. BMO economists look at the numbers to date in Vaccinations: State of Play and point out that even for the countries that started early, like the US, and the UK, reaching 60% of the population by the end of September will require an increase in the current vaccination rate per week by between 3 and 4 times the current pace.
Canada has been even slower off the mark, currently running at less than one-quarter of the per capita rates seen in the U.S. and Britain, and needs to step up the pace by a factor of 13.5 to around 550,000 vaccinations per week to reach the federal government’s goal of 60% of the population being immunized by the end of September. The slower the immunization rate, the slower the economic recovery expected:
This is of course a significant issue for the outlook for health care, but also for the timeline on re-opening activity and, thus, for individual livelihoods. Some of the sluggish pace may simply reflect teething pains that might get smoothed in the weeks ahead; if not, current robust expectations for activity later this year may soon see some serious scaling back.
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