There was great excitement this week as the first Covid-19 vaccines were delivered. However, along with it has been great confusion.
Although many reports have cautioned that there is still some way to go before reaching the end of the pandemic, they are not giving a clear indication of when that will be or why. As a consequence, many people think it will be quite soon and they don’t have to be that diligent about taking precautions and following coronavirus health guidelines. This is partly due to irresponsible reporting where journalists are not asking the right questions to explain the whole picture. It is also due to the poor planning of public health who have not made it clear how and when people will be getting vaccinated. Yet another example of how they are scrambling at every step of this public health crisis.
In the U.S., Operation Warp Speed has engaged the military to deliver the vaccine. They declared that they will have enough vaccines for everyone in the US by April 2021.
https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-usa-immunization/explainer-when-will-covid-19-vaccines-be-generally-available-in-the-united-states-idUKL1N2H713H
More recently they changed their estimate to be more in line with the CDC who estimate June 2021. Since the vaccines required two inoculations this means that 700 inoculations need to be performed. It does not seem realistic that this can be done in six months. Warp Speed has the responsibility to deliver the vaccines from a few pharmaceutical companies manufacturing locations to a limited number of depots in the US. They may be able to deliver 700 doses. However, that is not the end of the job. A much larger part of the job and a bigger challenge is to get those vaccines from the depots and deliver them and inoculate people. The Trump administration allocated billions of dollars for Warp Speed but hardly any money for local public health to do the vaccinations. According to them this is a state responsibility. But most states do not have the funds in order to be able to do this.
https://www.cbsnews.com/video/funding-shortfalls-hinder-vaccine-distribution-in-small-towns
It is likely that Congress will pass a bill to provide some vaccination funding for the states. But this late in the day means that many states have not done the necessary planning.
In Canada there are the same questions. The military has also been enlisted to organize the logistics of the vaccine rollout. But they only know the initial part of the rollout which is getting the drugs from the manufacturer and delivering them to a limited number of distribution points across the country. After that the local provincial health departments need to figure out how they are going to vaccinate millions of people. Here is an interview with the CEO of the University Health Network, one of the two vaccination centers in Ontario, which reveals that a lot of basic questions remain unanswered.
In spite of all this uncertainty, the Trudeau government has stated that all Canadians who want to be immunized will be vaccinated by September 2021.
https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/canada-plans-to-vaccinate-everyone-who-wants-it-by-the-end-of-2021-1.5224265
I think this target is overly opimistimc. I am sticking to the prediction made in the blog on Aug 15, 2020 that enough of the population will be vaccinated to achieve herd immunity by November 2021.
We don’t need to vaccinate everyone to halt the exponential rise of new cases. We only need about 60% immunity in the population. At that point Covid-19 will not disappear but the number of new cases will decline to a manageable level and large outbreaks will not occur. This also means that if as many as 40% of people choose not to get the vaccine, it does not prevent us from achieving herd immunity and controlling the pandemic.
There really is no excuse for this lack of planning. It has been known for at least six months that Pfizer and Moderna would be submitting their clinical trial data to the FDA at the end of December, and that with fast track FDA approval, vaccines would be ready for rollout in January. Public health had six months to prepare plans for local distribution but in both the U.S. and Canada they seem to be scrambling.
By contrast, here are some of the plans the U.K. has in place.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/11/thousands-of-hospital-staff-to-be-deployed-in-covid-vaccine-rollout
