A long, slow wait for full vaccination

After months of unrelentingly grim COVID-19-related news, it’s natural that a positive development should have people sighing with relief. With a vaccine finally on the horizon, an end could be in sight to what has been one of the darkest periods in American history.

But there’s so much more to the story.

In recent days, Connecticut officials laid out preliminary plans for vaccinating state residents. It’s a moment nearly everyone has been waiting for since the first shutdown hit in March and regular life as we know it mostly ground to a halt. Finally, there’s a chance to return to something resembling normalcy.

Even that good news, though, came with a bracing kicker. It could be early fall of 2021 before everyone in the state is vaccinated. That’s an estimate, and since it’s late fall now, we could be looking at a full year from this date that the process would be complete. It’s anyone’s guess what other complications could arise along the way, since everything about the process is unprecedented.

State health officials said they expect to receive the first shipments of a vaccine developed by Pfizer and its German partner BioNTech on Dec. 14, after the federal Food and Drug Administration’s review Dec. 10. Doses of a second vaccine developed by Moderna are expected to be delivered beginning on Dec. 21 following the FDA’s review on Dec. 17.

Once the process begins, people would be vaccinated based on need. Residents of nursing homes, where deaths have been the highest, would receive top priority, followed by health care workers, including nursing home staff, as well as medical first responders such as EMTs, firefighters and police.

The next focus would be on the state’s “critical workforce,” according to Gov. Ned Lamont, like day care and food service workers, as well as all adults over age 65, teachers, those at high risk under 65 and the state’s prison population.

That alone is a huge undertaking, but it doesn’t include a large chunk of the population, who will have to wait. This is as it should be, and people at the most risk must necessarily be the first to receive the vaccine. But it doesn’t make the prospect of waiting any easier.

Later phases of vaccination would include everyone not already in line to receive it, including those under 18. Preliminary plans call for that process to get underway in earnest around the beginning of summer. By then, warmer weather should allow for some semblance of normalcy to return, as was the case this past summer, but the danger would not be over.

Through all this, the need to wear masks in public places and avoid situations where the virus could easily spread will remain. No one should expect life to simply pick up as normal once the shots start to be administered.

Still, the news is positive. And end is in sight, even if it remains difficult to envision so far. As cases of the coronavirus continue to increase in the state and around the country, the need to be vigilant is as serious as ever.

Eventually, we can get through this.

This is as it should be, and people at the most risk must necessarily be the first to receive the vaccine. But it doesn’t make the prospect of waiting any easier.