Statistics on how many people have received each COVID vaccine?

October 1, 2021 6:26 PM

I'd like to know how many people have received the various COVID vaccines (at least the ones available in the US). I have a friend that is vaccine hesitant but it's starting to interfere with their life (can't go to big concerts without a recent test/can't eat inside a restaurant/etc.). I'd like some data to show them how them how many people have taken them and how many have recorded reactions.

My friend likes to pretend "their body is a temple" and doesn't want to get vaccinated. I know their body isn't a temple. I know all the weird drugs they've done (and I've joined in on many of them over the past couple decades so...). But I'd like to know some numbers so maybe if they do decide they might want to get vaccinated I can point to something. Their argument is a sort of hippie anti-authoritarian argument so not right-wing conspiracies or anything. But they fall back on a "Every time someone I know gets a flu vaccine they feel sick" sort of thing (ignoring the fact that most people who do get those shots don't since they only hear the ones that do). They just don't trust anyone trying to tell them to do something. And maybe numbers will help. It might be for naught but I want to give them something.

posted by downtohisturtles to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

If you scroll down on the CDC Vaccination stats page, you’ll find a chart of “Number of People Fully Vaccinated in the U.S. by COVID-19 Vaccine Series Type.” The chart currently shows:

• 101,414,770 people for Pfizer
• 68,524,278 people for Moderna
• 14,804,442 people for Johnson & Johnson

posted by mbrubeck at 6:56 PM on October 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

The WHO COVID dashboard shows 6,143,369,655 doses of COVID vaccines have been administered worldwide.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:02 PM on October 1, 2021

Since you also asked about how many people reported adverse reactions, this CDC page has you covered.
posted by mbrubeck at 7:06 PM on October 1, 2021

Your friend is getting their 'adverse vaccine reaction' misinformation from certain sources. Kff.org's further breakouts of the CDC stats linked above might interest them, depending on how they self-identify. For example: age, in the monitor dashboard; race/ethnicity as a share of vaccinations, cases, deaths and total populations per state reportage; Over Seven In Ten Adults Now Report Being Vaccinated For COVID-19 (Fig. 1); Uninsured Adults, Republicans, Rural Residents, White Evangelicals, Those Without College Degrees, And Younger Adults Continue To Lag In COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake (Fig. 2); NBC story about the unvaccinated's response to booster news, drawn from the organization's data.
posted by Iris Gambol at 8:28 PM on October 1, 2021

"Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem."

Similarly, one of the three serious adverse effects in the Moderna phase 2 trial was a 72 year old with arrhythmia, which developed 28 days after vaccination after being struck by lightning.
posted by Superilla at 9:19 PM on October 1, 2021 [4 favorites]

The vaccine doesn't stay in your body, tell her. It's not like you are adding something to your bloodstream forever. Its a set of instructions that is gone in a few days. There's nothing left to be IN you, except protection from covid.

I use this to see exciting vaccine data. vaccine data
posted by tiny frying pan at 5:53 AM on October 2, 2021

The "feeling sick afterward" part of vaccines is a sign you body is responding normally to the vaccine. This is called reactogenicity. It's part of your body's immune response. Older people have so far been less likely to have these reactions to the COVID and one theory is that older people's immune response is less robust than younger people's.
posted by oneirodynia at 11:37 AM on October 2, 2021