How the United States ramped up vaccination and started to warp the pandemic story

WASHINGTON.- The coronavirus vaccination in the United States started with a risky bet: The Donald Trump administration has invested billions of dollars in half a dozen vaccines without being sure of their effectiveness. Almost a year later, this bet – baptized Operation Warp Speed, a tribute to Star Trek– Paid: The United States has amassed an arsenal of vaccines, has already successfully immunized more than half of the population who face greater risk to the virus and is on its way to experiencing its first “normal” summer since the start of the pandemic.

Everything was done at a speed never seen before: vaccine development, clinical trials, federal government approval and ultimately distribution –Which started slowly, then accelerated– and injected into millions of guns. A process that usually takes several years has been carried out in one thanks to Herculean public investment, an unprecedented partnership between multinationals and the state, and a scientific leap that began to take shape over a decade ago. .

While Europe and Latin America – Argentina included – are progressing more slowly than desired with their vaccination and poorer countries barely have doses, The United States has already vaccinated nearly 115 million people, or one in three, with at least one dose, and is progressing at an average rate of three million daily doses.. Almost 60% of people over 65 are already fully vaccinated. It is vaccinated in hospitals, drugstore chains, stadiums, convention centers, mobile vaccinations, gyms or supermarkets. The photos of young people showing their vaccination record, when they receive the injection or a bandage on the shoulder are multiplying on social networks. “Vaccine tourism” has emerged. And by the end of this month, all states and the District of Columbia are expected to open vaccination to all adults. A concern is starting to emerge, especially in the south of the country: how to convince people who do not want to be vaccinated to do so.

The United States has failed to contain the coronavirus, but it is turning the story of the pandemic upside down with the vaccine.

Jon Andrus, epidemiologist and immunization specialist, professor at George Washington University, who was also deputy director of the Pan American Health Organization, explained that there are several factors behind this turning point. The production of most of the world’s vaccines is in the hands of a handful of multinationals, American and European, an advantage Washington has taken advantage of.

The United States had already developed messenger RNA technology, which was used in two of the approved vaccines, that of Pfizer and of Germany’s BioNTech., and Moderna, who worked on its development with the federal government’s National Institute of Health (NIH).

“When the virus first appeared, there was already some compelling science that helped accelerate vaccine development,” says Andrus. “What has always been 15 years has been compressed into one,” he sums up.

Silver mountain

Money has never been a barrier. By the end of 2020, the federal government had already committed about $ 13 billion for six vaccines, according to a report from the government office that monitors public spending. Unlike Europe and most of the countries that have bought vaccines, the United States has partnered with companies and paid for their development or production or both, before even approving them. Modern biotechnology received $ 2.5 billion, more than any other business. Johnson & Johnson and its Belgian subsidiary, Janssen, had $ 1 billion for their candidate. Pfizer chose to go ahead without public funding, but signed a nearly $ 2 billion contract to deliver up to 600 million doses.

To the Trump administration’s initial investment – which saw Warp Speed ​​as too late a political lifeline – the Biden administration added an additional $ 7.5 billion this year to improve distribution, according to the Kaiser Foundation . By the end of 2020, Washington had already managed to secure the vaccines with multi-million dollar contracts., and a political decision shared by Trump and Biden: to vaccinate the country first, and give vaccines to others, later. An “America First” strategy that has spread from one government to another. But the first vaccines were delivered with frustrating slowness. The Biden administration ramped up national distribution, leaving the final stretch in the hands of the states, which received federal funding.

Rachael Piltch-Loeb, a researcher at Harvard University School of Public Health, said Lightning speed that was only one of the success factors. The United States succeeded in hoarding vaccines, he said, but then applied a “diversified strategy” to apply the doses in the millions of weapons that worked. The traditional channels have been widened. The federal government struck the deal with help from the military and FEMA, the agency responsible for dealing with natural disasters. State and local governments vaccinated. New York used convention centers such as the Javits Center in Manhattan or Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, while the more rural and sparsely populated West Virginia created a network of pharmacies that added about 200 health centers. .

“With Covid-19, we see a much broader approach than in other vaccinations, like ‘everyone on the bridge’, everyone involved,” he said.

To the three vaccines already in use, the United States plans to add three more: those from AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford; Novavax, and Sanofi and GSK. Dr Anthony Fauci – Biden’s chief advisor on the pandemic – has previously said the country is even likely not to need the most advanced AstraZeneca vaccine for approval, and the federal government has already shipped four million doses in Mexico and Canada. .

Sometimes the vaccines are too much. A few days ago, in a Giant supermarket in Washington, twenty people lined up between the shelves of fruits and vegetables, a daily ritual. In the end, in one corner of the supermarket, a doctor and a group of nurses closed their shifts that day between cloth screens. The doctor approached the line to make the expected announcement: “I only have three doses left,” she said. The doctor began to call the priority groups, in their order: health workers, paramedics, firefighters, people over 65, police, homeless, adults with clinical conditions according to age groups, and so on. immediately until three people who were waiting had their solution. .

“It’s frustrating,” said Doug, 32, before leaving. It was the second time he had tried his luck in this supermarket. “All of my friends in other states have already received the vaccine fairly quickly. I will be the last to receive it, ”he lamented. But trust that you will receive it in the coming weeks. In many other countries, no one expects to be so lucky until at least next year.