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Where Does The United States Fit Into The Global Vaccination Effort?

Registered Nurse Morgan James loads a syringe with a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at the Blood Bank of Alaska in Anchorage.
Registered Nurse Morgan James loads a syringe with a dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine at the Blood Bank of Alaska in Anchorage.

As the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic gets underway, powerful international entities like the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union boast most of the world’s vaccine supply

Despite often shaky rollout efforts, they have more vaccine doses than they could ever give to their residents. Some critics arguing that they should supply other countries with excess vaccines to help expedite the end of the pandemic.

This effort might also include requiring that pharmaceutical companies share recipes for their coronavirus vaccines in order to ramp up production, but many of those companies oppose that suggestion.

Others say the United States should focus on vaccinating its own citizens first, especially considering the high rates of vaccine skepticism and hesitancy among the U.S. population.

What role should the U.S. and other superpowers play in the global vaccination effort? And how can we continue to combat vaccine hesitancy here at home? 

Find the last edition of ‘Vaccination Nation’ here.

Copyright 2021 WAMU 88.5

Kaity Kline
Kaity Kline is an Assistant Producer at Morning Edition and Up First. She started at NPR in 2019 as a Here & Now intern and has worked at nearly every NPR news magazine show since.