COVID-19 Data Forum

Upcoming Event: Monitoring COVID-19 Vaccine Availability, Distribution, and Adoption

With the success of COVID-19 vaccine trials, focus has shifted to the distribution of these vaccines to reduce virus spread and mortality. However, distributing vaccines to the world’s population is a mammoth task facing considerable challenges. Vaccines have constraints on their manufacturing and storage, there are still intellectual property issues that need to be navigated, and there are logistical challenges to inoculating billions of people. Incomplete and heterogeneous vaccination coverage, exacerbated by health inequities and vaccine hesitancy, threatens to leave pockets of the population far below the herd immunity threshold. Novel viral variants are appearing and spreading in populations around the globe, but the degree to which they enhance transmission, increase disease severity, or evade vaccine-induced immune responses remains unclear. This forum will provide an overview of the state and direction of vaccine availability, distribution, and adoption by experts in health and policy with emphasis on the data driving our understanding and decisions.