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Azar: Every American should be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by mid-2021
Every American will be able to get a coronavirus vaccine by the second quarter of 2021, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said in an interview for "Axios on HBO."
Why it matters: As cases, hospitalizations and deaths keep climbing higher, a vaccine seems to be the only chance the U.S. will have to arrest this pandemic.
- "My expectation is that next year we return to normalcy in our lives thanks to the incredible work of Operation Warp Speed and these vaccines, as well as the therapeutics," Azar told Axios' Mike Allen.
Reality check: A lot will have to go right in order to meet Azar's 2021 timeline, but it's not outside the realm of what experts see as realistic in a best-case scenario.
- A vaccine hasn't even been authorized yet by the Food and Drug Administration, but assuming that happens soon, distributing it across the U.S. and the world will be an unprecedented logistical undertaking.
- The two most effective vaccines, from Pfizer and Moderna, both require two shots — meaning they'd need to produce and distribute roughly 760 million doses, just within the U.S. and within the next six months, for every American to be get vaccinated by the end of the second quarter.
Azar said it's "my hope" that football stadiums will be packed next fall.
- He also rejected the premise that the Trump administration's coronavirus response has been a debacle.
- "We've saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives," he said, citing the administration's early actions, which have since largely been lifted as cases soared and deaths have continued to climb.
- The U.S. death count is now over 280,000.
The interview airs tonight on "Axios on HBO," at 11pm ET/PT on all HBO platforms.
Rural America could fall behind on coronavirus vaccination
Rural America's weak health care infrastructure, combined with vaccine hesitancy and the complexities of the distribution process, will make it much harder to vaccinate rural America against the coronavirus.
Why it matters: Rural areas are getting slammed by the virus, with some of the highest caseloads and most overworked hospitals anywhere in the country.
The big picture: Rural health systems have long grappled with underfunding and a shortage of workers. Those same challenges will also complicate vaccination efforts.
- “It is just logistically easier to reach people in dense urban populations than sparse rural ones,” said Josh Michaud, associate director of global health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Where it stands: Rural hospitals in several states were left out of this week’s initial shipment. The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at ultra-cold temperatures that only a small number of facilities can achieve, and it ships in batches of almost 1,000 doses.
- "(There was) a lot of frustration and a lot of questions about why urban nurses are more valuable than a rural nurse," said John Henderson, the CEO of the Texas Organization of Rural & Community Hospitals, told Houston Public Media. The organization argued it could have worked around the distribution challenges.
What's next: Moderna’s vaccine, which the FDA will likely authorize this week, has much less stringent storage requirements and will be shipped in smaller batches. But it won't solve rural America's disadvantages.
- After health care workers and nursing home residents have been vaccinated, it'll be much harder to target the next round of doses, and make them easily available, in rural areas.
- “That’s a much more dispersed population you're talking about,” Michaud said. “You’re needing more and more distribution points to reach a broader set of the population.”
Between the lines: High levels of vaccine hesitancy among rural Americans add another layer of difficulty.
- “If you have vaccine on hand and your priority group is not showing up to receive the vaccine, you may turn to the next group to vaccinate them if they are showing up,” Michaud said. “There’s a tension between ease of access and reaching equity."
What they’re saying: “We aren’t going to be forgotten,’' Carly Benton, executive director of The Mercy Ministries, which runs free and charitable health clinics in southeast Georgia, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “There’s just going to be as much as a six-month delay to get the vaccines."



