A Groundhog Day Prediction for the Pandemic

The biggest story about the pandemic right now is all about the difficulties getting vaccinated and getting enough vaccine.

Headlines talk about glitches and frustrations in getting an appointment to get a vaccine if you’re eligible and about delays and slow-ups in buying and shipping more doses to the states and local communities.

San Diego County officials say they will get better when we get more vaccine and when those glitches with the appointment websites are un-glitched.

And the nation’s top guy now in the new Biden administration when it comes to the coronavirus, Dr. Anthony Fauci says the distribution of the vaccine will get better very quickly. As he put it, it’s making sure that “as we get vaccines in, we can get more community vaccine centers, get them better allocated to pharmacies and even getting mobile units to go out into poorly accessible areas.”

Yes, while, Operation Warp Speed got the vaccines developed, now we need an “Operation Even Faster Speed’ to get the vaccines into at least 300 million arms as quickly as possible.

For now, Dr. Fauci is urging Americans to "step to the plate" and adhere to best public health practices while vaccine supply and distribution improve and to get the shot as soon as quickly as possible as people become eligible to get it. "There is light at the end of the tunnel," he says, "but it's going to be up to us.”

Maybe that Groundhog in Pennsylvania that predicts how much longer the winter will last could give us a sign that the end of the pandemic will come sooner than later, so we won’t have to keep hearing the same things every morning on the radio.

(Photo Getty Images)