We are losing site of the fact that we even have a Covid vaccine, and that over 7% of the population is already vaccinated in just over one month, is a remarkable feat. Yes, there are glitches. Yes, there is confusion. Yes, we all wish it was faster. None of that is the fault of Mayo, or any other provider - up until now, the states have received an allotment each week (maybe not what was promised) and distributed according to state priorities - with CDC guidance chaging often.

Federal contracts are not paused and renegotiated with each adminstration. The current renegotiation is the new administration trying to secure at least double the number of doses originally ordered (only 200 million were ordered, 600 million doses are needed.) That means negotiating additional contracts, and has zero impact on the original contracts. To date, about 45 million doses have been delivered to the states.

The biggest problem is production - new product, new process, few facilities stood up. The world needs billions of doses.

The second issue is that many states began distribution without regard to how many doses they would have available and/or how explosive the demand would be. They were simply responding to public outcry. If you look at statements made by medical people, not elected officials, going back to last Fall, they told us it would take up to a year to get enough doses of vaccine for everyone in the country.

Finally, the complexity of this is magnified by the need to give everyone 1) 2 doses, 2) of the same vaccine, 3) at the appropriate interval. There is NO centralized or readily available record-keeping system to manage this task, so EVERY facility needs to stand up their own. This should have been under development by the Feds in parallel with the vaccine development by pharmaceutical companies and we wouldn't have this chaos. To expect all 50 states and the territories to do it individually is ludicrous.

The bottom line is, not everyone can be first, or even second or third. It would have been helpful to have a standard, enforced prioritization for vaccine delivery, but that's not the way the Federal government chose to handle it, or anything else related to the pandemic. Now everyone needs to take a deep breath and hope more organization and clarity of information is forthcoming. I hope we may finally be headed in that direction.

Sue