NC vaccine demand dropping - state requested 78% fewer doses this week than last

Vaccine demand has slowed significantly in North Carolina. The state requested fewer than 40,000 first doses this week – that means that North Carolina requested and received 78% fewer first vaccine doses than it did a week ago.

When looking at the longer term, the amount requested and received dropped 85% from three weeks ago when the state's demand exceeded 263,000 first doses.

The slowdown in vaccinations comes as more than half of the state's adult population has received at least one dose and about 9.5% have had the virus.

North Carolina Coronavirus dashboard - Maps, charts and data

Experts have put the immunization level needed to reach herd immunity at 70 to 85 percent of the population.

In the wake of the uptake slowdown, the state has changed their request process, DHHS explained. It is no longer expecting providers to use all of the allocated doses in a week.

"Providers can order more doses when they have used at least 50% of the doses from their most recent allocation," wrote Bailey Pennington, a DHHS communications specialist, in an email to WRAL. "Providers can also work with nearby providers to transfer vaccine in smaller quantities."

According to the latest Kaiser Family Foundation report, some key metrics are plateauing.