From development to distribution, the coronavirus vaccine’s journey to the arms of Americans has been bumpy. Even with President Joe Biden’s optimistic goal of supplying enough vaccines for every American adult by the end of May, the pandemic and its consequences rage on. But now that several vaccines have been produced, approved, and distributed, what is next for a country approaching a full year of lockdowns and pandemic fears?
As of March 2, some 102 million vaccines have been distributed, and 78 million have been administered to Americans, according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data.
The U.S. is now averaging 1.9 million shots administered per day as of March 2, up from less than one million in mid-January. The rate puts the country on track to hit herd immunity – when enough people are immunized to stop the spread of the virus – by the end of the summer, according to reporting from Vox.
Initial vaccine deployment was poor. The U.S. fell short of its goal in December to inoculate 20 million people against the virus by the end of 2020. Only 4.8 million were administered by the first week of 2021, according to federal figures.
Under expedited procedures and global collaboration among pharmaceutical industry groups, there are risks in making sure the vaccine is administered to every American. Storage, handling, patient education, and even skepticism of the vaccine’s effectiveness are some of the concerns faced by leaders and healthcare workers as the world enters the third month of 2021.
In November of 2020, the first promising results of a vaccine came when Pfizer and BioNTech SE said their vaccine was 90% effective in preventing disease among trial volunteers. Kathrin Jansen, a senior vice president at Pfizer, called it a “historical moment” and a goal that nobody has ever achieved.
Moderna soon announced 94% effectiveness for its vaccine. Like Pfizer’s vaccine, Moderna’s mRNA variant acts as a blueprint for people’s cells to produce the coronavirus, allowing recipients to create antibodies and fend off the virus.
These vaccines are the first of their kind, which has made it difficult to know how they will impact the public in the long-term.
After approval from various advisory boards, officials have run into many of the issues healthcare officials feared. In Louisville, Kentucky, an accidental surplus of the vaccines allowed those outside priority groups to access the vaccine before others. Some states have received smaller shipments than planned.
So far, much of the delay has been chalked up to complicated storage guidelines, as both vaccines have to be stored at sub-zero temperatures. Early mishaps with storing the vaccine include shipments in California and Alabama having to be quarantined and doses in Brooklyn returned to manufacturers after becoming too cold.
With this, vaccine scams have run amok, too. Fraudsters have propelled a large bag of scams ranging from Craigslist ads, phone calls promising home delivery, text messages with false appointment details, and offers of “leftover” vaccines ready for the taking.
Cybersecurity firm Recorded Future reported that website domains containing the word “vaccine” grew to roughly 2,500 from October to November when the first round of vaccines received federal approval. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weisser said that older consumers are most likely to fall prey to these scams, AARP reported in January.
Last month, The White House announced it would increase its weekly vaccine supply to U.S. states by some 5% percent for the next three weeks, on top of the 16% increase announced in the prior week. COVID-19 response coordinator Jeff Zients said it would allow distribution to occur more “equitably” in communities.
Equal distribution has been an enormous concern for state and federal officials. Bloomberg’s COVID-19 vaccine demographics tracker revealed that White and Asian populations are being vaccinated faster than Black and Hispanic populations.
Some have attributed the lower distribution rates among communities of color to cynicism towards the vaccine. Other factors include the inability to sign up online due to lack of access to a computer or issues with buggy websites. With an ongoing demand for vaccines, sign-up sites such as Washington, DC’s vaccinate.dc.gov have not opened appointment slots for several days.
At the start of February, Uber, and Walgreens partnered to distribute vaccines to underprivileged communities. Patients can make an appointment with either Walgreens or offsite vaccination facilities and, shortly after, will be prompted to schedule their free ride. Chicago, Houston, El Paso, and Atlanta have piloted the program before widespread rollout. As of now, patients in Atlanta have access to free rides.
For now, it is only a matter of time and patience as Americans eagerly wait for May to arrive. What happens next is a combination of coordination, guidance from leaders, and perhaps even a bit of luck. COVID-19 has claimed over 500,000 American lives and over 2.5 million lives worldwide since the start of 2020, but infection rates have finally begun to drop worldwide, though new variants of the disease have been a cause for concern.
“I don’t think the sky is falling, but I think it’s something that absolutely bears attention,” Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told NPR on March 3.
