America has, finally, authorized a Covid-19 vaccine for the general public. Priority groups — health care workers and people in nursing homes — are now starting to get a vaccine. And if things go right, most of the country could be vaccinated by the end of next summer.
But that’s the caveat: if things go right. The development and authorization of a vaccine don’t mean that the US is guaranteed to get people inoculated quickly, or even that the country is on a certain path to conquer the coronavirus.
Experts caution, instead, that the country still faces two major challenges in its vaccination efforts.
First, the US has to manufacture and distribute a vaccine to more than 300 million people. As Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security senior scholar Crystal Watson told me, “This is going to be the largest mass vaccination campaign that the US has ever attempted.” It’s an effort so big, some experts have compared it to a New Deal.
The logistical challenge isn’t just to produce all the vaccine doses required, it’s also shipping and storing them around the US at cold temperatures, and then administering them to people. If each person needs two doses (as is true for the vaccine authorized so far, although one-shot vaccines are in development), the difficulties are doubled.
But even if the US is able to pull off a feat of logistics, a second challenge looms: People will need to be persuaded to get a vaccine. That this will happen is not guaranteed. Polls suggest as many as half of Americans are resistant to getting a Covid-19 vaccine.
Those hesitant people will need their concerns addressed, including worries about whether the quick development process sacrificed safety, what common side effects are expected, and what rare side effects may pop up. Doctors and public health officials will also have to communicate why it’s important for people to get a vaccine even if they don’t feel Covid-19 is a threat to them.
Experts caution that how the US deals with both these challenges could determine if Covid-19 remains a widespread problem by late 2021 or even 2022. It’s what will decide whether we get back to normal, and how many lives are saved — or unnecessarily lost — along the way.
