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Wearing masks, washing hands and social distancing are all proven to keep people from getting infected. But in the end, the only way we will truly beat back this disease is to vaccinate as many people as possible in the shortest time possible. Under any circumstances, this would be a difficult task. But with distrust of the vaccine prevalent in many communities -- and especially in some of the communities that have been hardest hit by the virus -- it is essential that we combine our vaccination efforts with our efforts to persuade people that COVID vaccines are safe, effective and essential to their health. Even as the Biden administration begins to enact its plan to accelerate vaccinations, we need to double down on the five actions below to make the process more efficient and effective. (Jay Bhatt and John Brownstein, 1/29)

The development, evaluation, and production of vaccines for Covid-19 was the remarkable success story of 2020; the challenge for 2021 is getting those vaccines into the bodies of a critical mass of the world’s population. This work is being compared with managing the last mile in other business sectors: once companies get products or information to regional hubs, they must deliver them to individual customers whose settings and habits are infinitely varied. Effectiveness in those last steps determines success. (Thomas H. Lee and Alice H. Chen, 1/27)

The Biden administration’s much-needed national strategy to end the Covid-19 pandemic includes plans to remedy the chaotic vaccination effort with “more people, more places, more supply.” The Federal Emergency Management Agency will open more vaccination sites, the government will buy more doses and more people will be immunized. Still, by all estimates the demand for vaccines will far exceed the supply for months to come. For weeks Americans have watched those who are well connected, wealthy or crafty “jump the line” to get a vaccine, while others are stuck, endlessly waiting on hold to get an appointment, watching sign-up websites crash or loitering outside clinics in the often-futile hope of getting a shot. (Elisabeth Rosenthal, 1/28)

The basic problem is in how the vaccine is being distributed around the world — not based on where there is the most need, but the most money. The richest countries have paid for hundreds of millions of doses, often far in excess of what they need. Canada, for example, has preordered enough to cover its 38 million residents five times over. Meanwhile, Nigeria’s 200 million people have not received a single dose of the vaccine. (Fareed Zakaria, 1/28)

In the race to prevent ever more deaths from Covid-19, the United States faces two major problems: not having enough doses of vaccine on hand and struggling to deliver those that are available. According to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as of Jan. 28 about 48.4 million doses had been distributed, but only 26.2 million administered. The Food and Drug Administration has granted emergency-use authorization to two vaccines requiring two doses — with the first shot and the booster to be delivered three weeks apart in the case of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, and four weeks apart for the Moderna vaccine. (Adam Finn and Richard Malley, 1/29)

My cell phone rang on a Sunday afternoon in early March and I answered it immediately. It was my friend, a doctor who specializes in epidemiology and infectious diseases. She warned me that the coronavirus was about to surge in New York City and recommended that if I could flee the city and retreat to my parents' house, I should do it, and fast. (Kendall Ciesemier, 1/28)

When Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the latest changes in the way California determines eligibility for COVID-19 vaccines, he chose an analogy that unintentionally revealed just how misguided the revised guidelines are. It’s like boarding an airplane, Newsom said. The gate agents don’t wait for every first-class passenger to enter the plane before they let the business-class passengers on. And the customers traveling in economy don’t wait until every last business-class passenger boards before they head down the jetway. (Tim Jin, 1/29)