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Coronavirus update: Vaccines and the pandemic in six charts

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After a year of a mounting human and economic toll brought on by the pandemic, help is on its way.

Americans are being vaccinated at an average rate of 2.3 million per day and supplies are sufficient enough that states have begun to lower age requirements. So encouraging are these numbers that the White House has directed every state to make vaccines available to all adults by May 1.

The economy is poised for its fastest rate of growth since the 1980s.

Since the middle of December, roughly 110 million doses of the vaccines have been administered, with just over 11% of the U.S. population fully vaccinated with two doses, according to data from Johns Hopkins and Bloomberg.

Given the acceleration in vaccinations, the U.S. economy will be ready to reopen in the near term, which underscores our robust growth forecast for this year. The availability of mass vaccinations and the reopening of the economy will create the conditions for the best growth in the U.S. since at least the 1980’s, if not World War II.

Deaths, hospitalizations and cases

The vaccines are coming after the three worst months of the pandemic. American deaths attributed to COVID-19 infections claimed 83,000 lives in December, nearly 99,000 in January and nearly 67,000 in February.

But with nearly 21,000 deaths reported so far in March, those numbers are declining, and a sustained downward trend would conform to the drop in hospitalizations from its peak in the first week of January.

Overall, there have been 547,000 deaths in the United States, now averaging 1,300 per day, according to Worldometer data.

There have been nearly 30.1 million U.S. cases of COVID-19 infections. Newly reported infections now average 54,400 per day, with 7.4 million people currently infected, according to Worldometer estimates. That’s back to last October’s rate of spread.

But this human toll has been accompanied by an economic unraveling, one that will not be recovered overnight.

State-by-state analysis

Using data from Bloomberg News and Johns Hopkins, the table below shows state-by-state COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccinations as of March 14.

For more information on how the coronavirus pandemic is affecting midsize businesses, please visit the RSM Coronavirus Resource Center.

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About Joseph Brusuelas

@JoeBrusuelas

Joe Brusuelas, “chief economist to the middle market,” is the preeminent voice championing issues and policies facing midsize companies in the United States and around the world. An award-winning economist, Brusuelas has more than 20 years’ experience analyzing U.S. monetary policy, labor markets, fiscal policy, international finance, economic indicators and the condition of the U.S. consumer.

A member of the Wall Street Journal’s forecasting panel and the UCLA Anderson School of Management's Board of Directors, Brusuelas regularly briefs members of Congress and other senior officials regarding the impacts of federal policy on the middle market and the factors by which middle market executives make business decisions. He also frequently offers his insights on the U.S., Canadian and global economies in the financial media. In 2020, he was named one of the 100 most influential economists by Richtopia. In December 2023, Brusuelas and the economics team were recognized on Bloomberg's list of Best Bond Forecasters after correctly predicting where the benchmark Treasury would end the year.

Before joining RSM in 2014, Brusuelas spent four years as a senior economist at Bloomberg L.P. and the Bloomberg Briefs newsletter group, where he co-founded the award-winning Bloomberg Economic Brief. Earlier in his career, he was a director at Moody's Analytics covering the U.S. and global economies for the Dismal Scientist website. He also served as chief economist at Merk Investments L.L.C. and chief U.S. economist at IDEAglobal.

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