Are any of the world's governments and drug companies ready to give a billion or more injections in 2021?
Anyone who believes that our economy will be able to fully open up before a vaccine is not only developed but deployed is dreaming. Will you take a vacation without being vaccinated? Sit at a bar? Attend a business meeting or convention? Go to a movie?
After watching our federal government constantly playing from behind these past few months, I don't see any evidence the White House is thinking about the logistics necessary to vaccinate everyone in America––or the diplomatic issues that are going to occur when the rest of the world wants to get their hands on that vaccine.
A vaccine may be available as soon as early 2021.
But just think about the logistics necessary to actually vaccinate everyone:
- Billions of doses will have to be manufactured worldwide.
- Which country will come up with it? What makes us think it will necessarily be an American creation?
- How will the vaccine be shared by the rest of the world––will other drug suppliers be able to manufacture it and under what terms?
- If it is injected, where are we, and the rest of the world, going to get billions of needles virtually overnight?
- What other support materials will we need to deliver the vaccine?
- What will the U.S. distribution network have to look like to quickly get people vaccinated? Can you imagine the free-for-all if this isn't methodically thought out?
- If it is a two part vaccination, what additional logistics will we need to have ready?
Will needle shortages become the new N95 mask fiasco? How are we going to divide the vaccine supply with the rest of the world?
Are we going to have to watch another series of White House task force briefings early next year where they tell us no one could have possibly seen this coming?
I see no evidence the White House has thought about any of this.
Maybe it's up to the governors to sort it out fifty different ways.
