The Covid-19 vaccine's 2 big challenges

Gold last traded at $1,853 an ounce. Silver at $24.54 an ounce.

NEWS SUMMARY: Precious metal prices rebounded sharply Tuesday on bargain-hunting and a weaker dollar. U.S. stocks rose on economic relief hopes and Covid-19 vaccines began to roll out nationwide.

VOX--"The US has authorized a coronavirus vaccine. That doesn't guarantee a quick end to the pandemic. America has, finally, authorized a Covid-19 vaccine for the general public. Priority groups - health care workers and people in nursing homes - are now starting to get a vaccine. And if things go right, most of the country could be vaccinated by the end of next summer.

But that's the caveat: if things go right. The development and authorization of a vaccine don't mean that the US is guaranteed to get people inoculated quickly, or even that the country is on a certain path to conquer the coronavirus. Experts caution, instead, that the country still faces two major challenges in its vaccination efforts.

First, the US has to manufacture and distribute a vaccine to more than 300 million people. As Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security senior scholar Crystal Watson told me, 'This is going to be the largest mass vaccination campaign that the US has ever attempted.' It's an effort so big, some experts have compared it to a New Deal. The logistical challenge isn't just to produce all the vaccine doses required, it's also shipping and storing them around the US at cold temperatures, and then administering them to people....

But even if the US is able to pull off a feat of logistics, a second challenge looms: People will need to be persuaded to get a vaccine. That this will happen is not guaranteed. Polls suggest as many as half of Americans are resistant to getting a Covid-19 vaccine. Those hesitant people will need their concerns addressed, including worries about whether the quick development process sacrificed safety, what common side effects are expected, and what rare side effects may pop up....

On the second challenge, experts say, the US is falling behind. When I asked if the country is prepared on the public opinion side for widespread Covid-19 vaccination, Texas State University medical anthropologist Emily Brunson told me, 'No, we're not.' So far, no real federal education and awareness campaign is underway. 'It would have been ideal to begin months ago,' Brunson said.

Experts caution that how the US deals with both these challenges could determine if Covid-19 remains a widespread problem by late 2021 or even 2022. It's what will decide whether we get back to normal, and how many lives are saved - or unnecessarily lost - along the way....

'If we do [vaccination] right, it can be positive and have long-term implications for public health generally,' Brunson said. 'But the opposite is also true: If this is done badly, you run the risk of undermining public trust in your entire public health system.'"