Vaccine shortages and precious doses wasted. Unnavigable systems for making appointments. A stark racial and economic divide in the distribution of shots. Scary virus mutants that may render vaccines ineffective. Protesters disrupting vaccination sites.
It may seem at times that the high hopes for the covid-19 vaccination rollout have fizzled since December, when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave emergency authorization to the first vaccine. But step back for a moment and chew on this little factoid: In just two months, the U.S. has managed to administer 55 million shots--more than any other country--even during a chaotic time of plague and contentious presidential transition.
Overall, about 12 percent of the 330 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose, primarily people who are at highest risk for sickness and death. And though five countries have vaccinated a larger percentage of their population (an impressive 76 percent in Israel), they have far fewer people to inoculate.
The Biden administration promised it would work with vaccine makers to increase production of doses, and it has delivered. In the last four weeks, the daily rate of inoculations has just about doubled.
Meanwhile, Johnson & Johnson's one-shot vaccine may be available for distribution in March. And though it has a lower rate of preventing infections than the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines now in use in the U.S., a 66 percent efficacy rate is nothing to sneeze at. Most important, like the other two vaccines, it's about 100 percent effective at preventing hospitalization or death. Plus, it doesn't require extreme cold storage, which will make it easier to distribute.
Scientists can't say for certain that being vaccinated reduces one's ability to transmit the virus, but recent studies offer promising indications that it does by lowering the viral load for the few people who do get sick after vaccination.