2:58 pm UTC Mar. 11, 2021Each month since June, USA TODAY has asked a panel of more than a dozen experts in medicine, virology, immunology and logistics to estimate on an imagined clock when a COVID-19 vaccine would be available to most Americans.
To Pamela Bjorkman it’s the smallpox scenario – a wiping out of the virus. A structural biologist at the California Institute of Technology, she sees victory as coming when everyone in the world is vaccinated and there are no more cases. “We can declare victory over this pandemic in the U.S. if the virus causes only a negligible bump in cases next winter,” said Dr. Paul Offit, a pediatrician and head of the Vaccine Education Center at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
“There will be small fires in the form of sporadic cases of COVID-19 even after administering the vaccine to the majority of the population, but it will be easier to put out such fires,” he said. We also need manufacturing and distribution readiness to deal with smaller outbreaks, said Prashant Yadav, a medical supply chain expert at the Center for Global Development.
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