Regulators Need to Plan Now For Allocating COVID-19 Vaccine

Not enough attention is being paid to how exactly a COVID-19 vaccine will be rolled out. What will happen after a vaccine is approved by regulators? Who will get it first? Since most countries won’t have enough doses for everyone, governments need to plan now for how the vaccine will be fairly distributed. According to researchers, the following decisions are needed:

• Should the vaccine be available through private channels or only public ones?
• What criteria should be used to fairly distribute limited doses?

To answer these questions and more, governments need to develop a framework that evaluates the relative benefits of vaccinating different segments of society. The war against COVID-19 will be won in stages—not the least of which is allocating the vaccine fairly and efficiently. Read more about how governments can prepare here.

(Source: Laurence Roop and Philip Clarke, The Conversation, September 3, 2020)