Experts: Plan now to ensure COVID-19 vaccine distribution

Bars, concert venues and sport arenas won’t fully open to the public in Massachusetts until there is a vaccine, or a treatment, for COVID-19. But if one were to be approved in the fall, or winter, who would be immunized first? And who would administer it?

The fourth and final stage of reopening may seem a long way off given that vaccines are still in various stages of development, but experts agree that planning for the eventuality of a vaccine should begin now.

“It would be a tragedy if a vaccine were produced, available and effective and we couldn’t get it to people fast enough,” said Lauren Stienstra, program director for homeland security and emergency management at the National Governors Association.

The NGA published policy memo this month suggesting that a “whole of government” response will be needed to successfully distribute a vaccine to the public. Gov. Charlie Baker sits as a member of the NGA’s executive committee.

“The challenge of vaccine development is matched by the challenge of vaccine distribution; once discovered and produced, it must be delivered and dispensed to the population writ large,” the memo said.

The nine-page blueprint, which is intended to help states think through the challenges of vaccination, recommended that governors begin convening Cabinets and stakeholders to develop preliminary strategies.

“I think states of course have been planning,” said Claire Hannan, executive director of the Association of Immunization Managers. “They have existing pandemic flu plans that they would have brought off the shelf, dusted off and really started going through.”

But even though states like Massachusetts have existing distribution channels for vaccines, many questions about a COVID19 vaccine remain unanswered.

Those questions include who will get the vaccine first if there is limited supply, should scope-of-practice laws be amended to increase the supply of medical professionals licensed to administer a vaccine, and will the state employ a “push model” or a “pull model” for distribution.

The latter relies on a strategy of pushing vaccine out to local agencies and private sector partners responsible for delivering vaccine to specific populations. The former involves putting the onus on the public to “retrieve” vaccines from drive-thru clinics, clinics at schools and other distribution sites.

HANS PENNINK / AP Nurse Kathe Olmstead, right, gives volunteer Melissa Harting, of Harpersville, N.Y., an injection as the world's biggest study of a possible COVID-19 vaccine, developed by the National Institutes of Health and Moderna Inc. of Cambridge, gets underway Monday, July 27 in Binghamton, N.Y.