How will the covid-19 vaccine be distributed amongst such huge population in the US and UK?

Now that there are already vaccines that are said to have passed trials and are good to go for mass distribution, such as the ones from Pfizer, Moderna, and Astra Zeneca. The issue and challenges that countries have to face are limited supplies, approval by local government, and prioritization.

Different countries have used different strategies to go about distribution. In the United Kingdom, they have made the distribution more centralized wherein all processes and prioritization will come from London.

In the U.S. on the other hand, the Trump administration has made it very decentralized wherein they are leaving all the decision-making to the separate states. It is said that the vaccines in the U.S. are divided into the population and not the specific need of the state due to affected cases.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, it seems that we are reaching the light at the end of the tunnel. We have several vaccines that have been tested and been seen as effective. Though we have it, the pandemic is not over yet, because the vaccines are going out in batches and it could take another one to two years before everyone has access to it.

For countries like the United States that have millions of people in it that need the vaccine, the vaccine is first going to places that need it the most. These are the hot spots in the country. Hospitals and government officials are among the first to get the vaccine.

With the increasing cases of coronavirus in the US and UK, another major problem the two countries would be facing is how they will get their citizens inoculated with a covid vaccine. This is a problem because only few companies have released their vaccines and there is no way the vaccines can serve the huge population in the US and UK at once since other countries also need vaccines. However, to solve this problem, the UK government has instructed health workers to start inoculating those that are currently in the hospitals, and those that are most vulnerable to coronavirus infection. And that, with time, the vaccine will go round when more stocks are available. The UK government is also planning to open more places for people when more vaccines are available. The United States government is also planning the same thing, as they also want older people to get inoculated first.

The first vaccine certified by American regulators and the first approved by their British and Canadian counterparts is developed by the pharmaceutical giant Pfizer and a small company, BioTech. The distribution of the vaccine is centralized in Britain, but not in the United States. Britain, which began providing the vaccine this past week, is conducting the procedure from London. The national government selected the 50 hospitals that would initially receive the vaccine and made sure they were prepared, decide how much each one would attain, and created the rules determining in what order people would be eligible to receive it. The Trump administration has decided to leave it up to the states. The federal government will have the vaccine delivered to each state based on population instead of need. Some states have objected that they do not know enough about the procedures involved. It will be a state issue in determining how to allocate the doses among hospitals, clinics, and ultimately drugstores and doctor’s offices. The first to obtain the vaccine will be hospitals with ultracold storage. There is a priority list, and first on the list are medical workers and first responders. Britain has a universal healthcare system, while the United States has a federal government. Britain and the United States have followed similar strategies by pre-ordering many doses from various manufacturers to prepare for some of the vaccines not approved or if some incur production breakdowns.