Vaccines Administered Across America
The U.S. is in its second month administering COVID-19 vaccines, and so far 2.7% of the population has been vaccinated. Healthcare workers were the first to receive the vaccines because they are the people most immediately exposed to the virus. The phases in which people receive vaccines vary from state to state since it is up to the governors to decide how to roll out the vaccine. When the vaccine was first being administered, there was a lot of chaos in the states because websites were crashing and people did not know where to get the vaccine. The situation has started to improve a bit, but there are still instances where websites crash and people miss out on chances to get the vaccine. The federal government has been holding back some supply of vaccines in order to give each person the two doses required for the two-dose vaccines. Some people are unhappy with that decision and believe that everyone should be vaccinated immediately, even though there are not enough supplies at the moment.
President-elect Joe Biden plans on distributing most of the available vaccines to the public, instead of holding back doses to guarantee that people get their second shot. While it is best to give the vaccine to as many people as possible, there is no guarantee that the vaccine companies will continue to produce the vaccine at a fast enough rate to give people their second doses in time. The two-dose vaccines are meant to be given a certain amount of time apart, and prolonging the amount of time between doses could decrease the effectiveness of the vaccine. There is currently not enough evidence to determine the effectiveness of increased time between doses.
The U.K. has decided to give more people the first dose of the vaccine and prolong the amount of time between doses. We do not know for sure if their method is effective, but it does not seem advisable because that is not the way the vaccine is meant to be given.
In my opinion, the government should continue to limit the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in order to maximize the number of vaccines given while adhering to the recommended time between doses. Rolling out more first doses of the vaccine immediately may be a good idea to get people somewhat immune, but if we are to get full immunity we should administer the vaccine following the way pharmaceutical companies designed it.
What do you think is the best way for the U.S. to distribute and administer the COVID-19 vaccine? Why?
Also, feel free to comment or respond to anything else in this post!
Sources:
https://www.axios.com/biden-vaccine-plan-f4c94912-0645-422a-8d48-46815adc99e0.html
https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20210111/news/301119947/
Hi Yair, great post! I wasn’t really aware of this dilemma with vaccine distribution and thought your post was informative. It’s a tough decision as to which way the vaccine should be distributed because obviously you would want everyone to have access to the vaccine as soon as possible, yet it might not be the most effective. I agree with you though that right now people should receive their guaranteed second doses of the vaccine first. I feel that this would be the best option thinking in the long term so that people can get the most out of the vaccine and not have the possibility of continuing to infect each other.
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