The vaccine is coming. It might be a long time until most of us have our turn to receive it, but it is coming. In the meantime, the CDC has drawn up a plan to distribute the vaccine that requires vaccine administrators to sign a data use agreement that shares the names, birthdates, and addresses of vaccine recipients. Some places are skeptical. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, for instance, balked at the request: “It’s another example of them trying to extort the State of New York to get information that they can use at the Department of Homeland Security and ICE that they’ll use to deport people.” It might make people afraid to get the vaccine in the first place.[5] Moreover, just like we saw earlier in the pandemic over PPE, state governments fear that they will end up competing against each other and other countries for vaccines.[6] Still, shipping companies, including airlines, are getting ready to distribute quickly, even changing rules on how much dry ice can be in the plane.[7] Of course, we know there are likely to be distribution problems. Julie Swann, head of the industrial and systems engineering department at North Carolina State University and a health care supply chain expert, stresses that the goal will be to “distribute some 510 million doses.” By comparison, during the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-20, the US moved around 10 million doses per week, maximum, and ultimately injected 80 million doses.[8] This time is unprecedented. The bottlenecks we will see are in glass, syringes, and the enormous amounts of dry ice we will need. And that’s before we get to the challenges of having enough healthcare workers to distribute the vaccines fairly and broadly.[9]

So, the vaccine is coming. But first we have to get through the winter.

Notes

[1] Martin Bagot and Martin Fricker, “‘Super-Gran’ Margaret Keenan’s Coronavirus Jab Sets UK on Road to Normality,” Mirror, December 8, 2020, https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/uk-super-gran-first-receive-23137329.

[2] “Shakespeare Gets Covid Vaccine: All’s Well That Ends Well,” BBC News, December 8, 2020, sec. UK, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55233021.

[3] World Health Organization, THE WHO PANDEMIC PHASES, Pandemic Influenza Preparedness and Response: A WHO Guidance Document (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, 2009), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK143061/.

[4] Thomas Macaulay, “AI Model Predicts the Coronavirus Pandemic Will End in December,” Neural, April 29, 2020, https://www.thenextweb.com/neural/2020/04/29/ai-model-predicts-the-coronavirus-pandemic-will-end-in-december/.

[5] Centers for Disease Control, “Data Use and Sharing Agreement to Support the United States Government’s COVID-19 Emergency Response, Jurisdiction Immunization and Vaccine Administration Data Agreement,” December 2020, https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/covid-19/reporting/downloads/vaccine-administration-data-agreement.pdf; Sheryl Gay Stolberg, “Some States Balk After C.D.C. Asks for Personal Data of Those Vaccinated,” The New York Times, December 8, 2020, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/08/us/politics/cdc-vaccine-data-privacy.html.

[6] Sarah Owermohle, “U.S. Could Face Months of Vaccine Shortages amid Global Competition,” Politico, December 8, 2020, https://www.politico.com/news/2020/12/08/coronavirus-vaccine-shortage-443839.

[7] Jessica Wehrman, “Shipping Networks Prep for COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution,” Roll Call, December 9, 2020, https://www.rollcall.com/2020/12/09/shipping-networks-prep-for-covid-19-vaccine-distribution/.

[8] CDC, “CDC Novel H1N1 Flu — The 2009 H1N1 Pandemic: Summary Highlights, April 2009-April 2010,” June 16, 2010, https://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/cdcresponse.htm.

[9] Rebecca Heilweil, “How Quickly Can the US Distribute a Covid-19 Vaccine? Here Are the Four Biggest Logistical Challenges.,” Vox, December 7, 2020, https://www.vox.com/recode/22151473/vaccine-covid-19-pfizer-glass-syringes-needles-freezers.