Oregon trails 40 other states for its slow pace of getting coronavirus vaccine shots in arms, federal data show, leaving the vaccine deployment lagging as the state’s death toll hit 1,500 Sunday.
Oregon has given 48,725 vaccine shots since the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine was approved Dec. 11. But Oregon has received 190,500 doses, meaning that about 141,000 doses are still sitting in boxes as the virus continues spreading and mutating. The state health authority said 1,700 doses were given yesterday and another 1,700 shots were recorded from earlier days.
At a pace of 3,400 shots a day, it would take until May 2024 to vaccinate all 4.2 million Oregonians.
About 75% of the doses received in Oregon have not yet been given, worse than the national average of 67%, according to data reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday.
Nationwide, as of Saturday, 4.2 million shots had been administered from 13 million doses delivered.
The CDC data show Oregon trailing some states by wide margins. Nine states have given more than half of the doses they’ve received. Three of them -- Connecticut, North Dakota and South Dakota -- have administered about two-thirds of the doses they’ve received.
The Oregon Health Authority and Gov. Kate Brown did not respond to requests for comment Sunday about what accounts for the slow pace of a rollout they’ve had months to plan.
The federal leaders behind Operation Warp Speed, the government’s vaccination campaign, have said they expect the pace to accelerate in coming weeks.
— Rob Davis
503.294.7657; @robwdavis
Subscribe to Oregonian/OregonLive newsletters and podcasts for the latest news and top stories.