What the US can do to speed up vaccine distribution

The US set a new daily record for Covid-19 deaths on Jan. 6, reporting the loss of 3,963 lives. So where are the vaccines? Thus far, the rollout of doses from Pfizer and Moderna has been underwhelming. The US set a goal of vaccinating 20 million people in December 2020, but by Jan. 7 the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that only 5.3 million first doses had been injected, and only about 17 million doses have been sent to states. The slow pace means it will take longer to bring the pandemic under control, increasing both the human and economic toll of this crisis. The problem appears to be government dysfunction—specifically, an unfulfilled need for support from the federal government to the state agencies and local healthcare providers tasked with distributing the vaccine. To reach safe levels of immunity in the US by May would require providing 1.8 million doses every single day after Jan. 15, according to a letter (pdf) the American Hospital Association (AHA) sent to Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar today.