Media Coverage

Three weeks ago, Jim Lober became one of the lucky few to receive a first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine at Bayou City Event Center. Lober, a 69-year-old attorney, left the venue where thousands would wait in lines wrapping around the building with the beige card indicating he’d received the vaccine on Jan. 8 and was due back in four weeks for the final shot. At first, the Houston Health Department told him to call back the week before his second shot; but when he checked the city’s website, he learned he should wait for the department to reach out to him for scheduling. Now, with one week left before Lober should receive the second dose of Moderna, he has no clue when or where to go.

President Biden’s plan to use a Cold War-era law to boost the Covid-19 vaccination effort isn’t likely to expand production significantly in the near term, but it could jump-start vaccinations by increasing other supplies such as syringes, vaccine manufacturers and experts say. Mr. Biden has invoked the Defense Production Act to take certain steps to expand vaccine manufacturing, such as producing more equipment and materials used to make shots. He also will use the act to boost supplies such as “low dead space” syringes, which can be used to squeeze more doses out of vaccine vials. Mr. Biden, inaugurated Wednesday, has set a plan to administer 100 million vaccine doses in the first 100 days of his presidency.

The Donald Trump administration left the vaccine rollout, for the most part, to state and local governments. So right now, “it’s literally the Wild West,” said Anna Nagurney, professor of operations management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “You need better coordination, better communication and emphasizing operational efficiency,” Nagurney said. “And we know how to do that.” By “we,” she meant American companies.

President Biden’s promise to administer 100 million vaccines by his 100th day in office is no longer a lofty goal; it is attainable at the current pace at which shots are going into arms. In fact, some experts have suggested that the president’s ambition is far too modest. Federal data shows that the United States is already administering about one million doses a day, and even doubling that rate would not cause the country to fall short of distribution capacity or supply. Here’s how the vaccination campaign could play out if the United States maintains the current pace, assuming that the vaccine makers Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna meet their supply agreements and vaccines continue to be distributed at the same rate they have been over the last two weeks.

The spoilage of nearly 2,000 COVID-19 vaccines at the VA Medical Center in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood sparked a reaction from people in the city. Anna Nagurney, a professor of operations management at the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, is an expert in supply chains, including vaccine rollouts. She says the loss of 1,900 vaccine doses should never have happened. "I think it's actually unforgivable," she said. "We cannot afford to be wasting our vaccines.