News Room

What are the logistical challenges of distributing different types of COVID-19 vaccines to millions of people, from urban centers to sparsely populated rural counties? Julie Swann has answers. Swann, a systems engineer with expertise in vaccine distribution whose work focuses on making health care and supply chains more efficient, effective, and equitable, is the department head and professor of the industrial and systems engineering department of at North Carolina State University.

Doctors and nurses at some of the top hospitals in the country say that people with the most exposure to COVID patients are not always the people getting the vaccine first. As Gabrielle Emanuel of member station GBH in Boston reports, some people are saying the distribution has been like a free-for-all.

U.S. health officials acknowledged that a Covid-19 immunization campaign is crawling out of the starting gate, raising the prospect that the nation’s all-in bet on vaccines could be afflicted by the same dysfunction that hobbled other measures to contain the pandemic. Only about 3.05 million Americans had been vaccinated as of late Wednesday evening in New York, according to Bloomberg’s vaccine tracker. With one day remaining in the year, that represented roughly 15% of the U.S.’s stated goal of immunizing 20 million Americans by the end of 2020 -- a number already repeatedly reduced.

Mass vaccination clinics could come to Georgia as early as next week, and according to state health commissioner Dr. Kathleen Toomey, will be vaccinating up to 5,000 people a day. Health officials are expanding access to COVID-19 vaccines after announcing that many doses in rural counties are sitting in freezers, while demand in the metro area continues to climb. A Georgia Department of Public Health spokesperson says they don't have all the logistics worked out yet, however. 

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said Monday that vaccine distribution has been "a little slower rolling out than everyone initially thought." On Tuesday morning, less than 15% of available shipped vaccines had been administered. A total of 295,375 vaccines (including Pfizer and Moderna) had been shipped to Georgia but only 43,469 had been administered. Tuesday afternoon, those numbers slightly increased with a total of 372,900 vaccines shipped to Georgia and 52,242 administered. "It's well documented that it has been a little slower," said Governor Kemp in an interview with 11Alive. "That's understandable."