People might need two doses of the novel coronavirus vaccine to build immunity to it, but getting people to take two shots might be a problem, experts told CNN.
What’s happening:
Dr. Kelly Moore, a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University, recently told CNN that convincing people to get two doses of the COVID-19 vaccine might be a harder task than we think.
- “There’s no question that this is going to be the most complicated, largest vaccination program in human history, and that’s going to take a level of effort, a level of sophistication, that we’ve never tried before.”
Many vaccines — like the vaccine for the chickenpox — required two doses, too. Some vaccines require close to five doses to block off tetanus, diphtheria and other diseases.
Two doses means you have to double up the amount the actual vaccine and the equipment needed to distribute.
You have to double everything in the supply chain. The syringes, can they double up? Can the vials double up? Can the stoppers double up? Can the needles double up? Everybody has to double up, and then they all have to get it in time at the various entities along the supply chain. — Nada Sanders, a professor of supply chain management at Northeastern University, told CNN.
Who gets a COVID-19 vaccine?
Experts wonder how they’re going to distribute the COVID-19 vaccine once it’s available. Deciding who gets the vaccine may be a difficult part of the process, as Sara Israelsen-Hartley wrote for Deseret.com.
- “There’s always an assumption that if you make (a vaccine) they will come. We have plenty of evidence that that is not the case, and I think we’re facing a situation where that problem could be worse than normal.” — Vicki Freimuth, a former communications director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a professor emerita in the department of communication studies at the University of Georgia.