Supply Chain

As of Monday about 9 million Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have received the first dose of a COVID-19 vaccine, which is far below the goal of vaccinating 20 million people by the end of 2020. The slow vaccine rollout is occurring at the same time the United States is enduring record levels of infections and deaths. To accelerate vaccinations, some have proposed to delay the timing of the second dose. Critics of this approach argue that it lacks clinical evidence and may weaken the public’s confidence in vaccine effectiveness.

A sluggish rollout of Covid-19 vaccines across the U.S. highlights the challenges of a decentralized distribution plan that relies on states and localities to handle the complicated last-mile logistics of getting shots into people’s arms, supply-chain experts say. More than 22 million doses had been distributed to states and other jurisdictions as of Friday, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, while 6.7 million people had received their first shot by that point. The figures were short of the U.S. goal of 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2020, and communities and states were still reporting bottlenecks this month as they managed their inoculation programs.

It’s a miracle of modern medicine that scientists were able to develop multiple successful vaccines against Covid-19, a disease that wasn’t even on their radar a year ago. But so far, the global effort to roll out these vaccines and distribute them to vulnerable people is off to a slow start. According to a tracker developed by OurWorldInData—a research partnership between the University of Oxford and the British non-profit Global Change Data Lab—three countries have vaccinated a higher proportion of their populations than the rest of the world: Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Bahrain.

After the initial excitement following the authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines, a harsh reality set in. People who want a vaccine can’t get it, some counties have more than others and older people are camping out for it the way they once might have for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert. All of this would seem to be an indication of supply chain problems or systems breakdowns. In fact, it’s more about a shortage of employees to support the supply chains and distributions. Some states are even considering calling up the National Guard.

After the initial excitement following the authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines, a harsh reality set in. People who want a vaccine can’t get it, some counties have more than others and older people are camping out for it the way they once might have for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert. All of this would seem to be an indication of supply chain problems or systems breakdowns. In fact, it’s more about a shortage of employees to support the supply chains and distributions. Some states are even considering calling up the National Guard.

After the initial excitement following the authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines, a harsh reality set in. People who want a vaccine can’t get it, some counties have more than others and older people are camping out for it the way they once might have for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert. All of this would seem to be an indication of supply chain problems or systems breakdowns. In fact, it’s more about a shortage of employees to support the supply chains and distributions. Some states are even considering calling up the National Guard.

After the initial excitement following the authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccines, a harsh reality set in. People who want a vaccine can’t get it, some counties have more than others and older people are camping out for it the way they once might have for tickets to a Bruce Springsteen concert. All of this would seem to be an indication of supply chain problems or systems breakdowns. In fact, it’s more about a shortage of employees to support the supply chains and distributions. Some states are even considering calling up the National Guard.

Mass vaccination clinics could come to Georgia as early as next week, and according to state health commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey, will be vaccinating up to 5,000 people a day. Health officials are expanding access to COVID-19 vaccines after announcing that many doses in rural counties are sitting in freezers, while demand in the metro area continues to climb. A Georgia Department of Public Health spokesperson says they don't have all the logistics worked out yet, however. 

Mass vaccination offers hope for a return to the prepandemic normal. But the distribution process also comes with some potentially nasty side effects: Vaccination without a careful plan could inadvertently make the world even more unequal than a year ago. The two initial vaccine candidates, from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, may have particularly problematic consequences for inequality. But the candidate that may have seemed like a runner-up in the vaccine race, from Oxford- AstraZeneca, has strong potential to finish as the most essential vaccine to end the pandemic.

Sherean Malekzadeh, who runs a marketing firm in Atlanta, hasn't been out to eat once since the pandemic was called in March. She skipped grocery stores for much of the year as well. Ordering online takes more time, "and you have to be on standby when the shoppers are there, in case they want to text you about missing items, but it makes me feel safer." Malekzadeh wasn't alone on that front. The pandemic changed our relationship with food in 2020. Online food ordering, from groceries and restaurants, was growing anyway, but this year it just got more popular faster.