The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccine has been very sluggish throughout most of the United States, but one state seems to be doing much better than all the others.
Amidst the pandemic, the US has seen a new administration with Joe Biden taking over the previous administration of former President Donald Trump. Some have placed all the blame on the former president for the lethargic pace of vaccine distribution and failure to deliver on the promise of 20 million vaccinations by the end of 2020, but not all share this same sentiment.
“I don’t necessarily believe that Donald Trump is to blame for the slow rollout. He had one foot out the door, and the next administration was about to come in,” said Waleed Raja, who has seen the rollout of the vaccine in both the US and Canada.
After all, the President delegated the responsibility of delivering the vaccines to patients to the states. Rather than distribute the vaccines themselves, 49 states have decided to let private healthcare companies such as CVS and Walgreens handle the distribution.
“Private companies should not be in charge of distributing the vaccine. State involvement would make the distribution much fairer and more efficient,” said Waleed Raja.
This is what West Virginia has been doing due to a shortage of CVS and Walgreens in that state. They have managed to deliver more vaccines into the arms of patients than any other state in the nation as they have taken the responsibility of delivering the vaccine themselves rather than having private companies, who are not as organized, do it.
“States should be delivering the vaccines in a much more organized way,” said Waleed Raja.
It seems as though West Virginia has cracked the code in terms of how to get these vaccines into the arms of patients who need them. “The state government should be delivering the vaccines to eliminate any conflict of interests from these private companies,” said Waleed Raja.
It may be time that the other 49 states follow this same approach so that the United States could lead the charge in defeating this virus and finally ending this pandemic.
