The mRNA vaccine is likely the most effective, most tech advanced and with least side effects compared to viral vector vaccines(Astra Zeneca) or inactivated virus(sinovax/novavax) due to least antigenic properties.
But the bottleneck is in storage(minus freezing refrigerator units needed) and distribution(insurance/hospitals staff when patients go to get the vaccine) all this also makes the vaccine more expensive.
Why not have mobile vaccination camps. Load up vans with storage capacity and drive to peoples homes. And deliver the vaccines.
Mobile medical vans are not uncommon in Africa and Asia and India. This is how they get billions of people vaccinated.
Surely I can’t be the only person who thought of it. Either it is not practical(I don’t buy it) or there is some other reason why there is so much inefficiency even in CA where everything is ready for vaccination roll out.
If developing nations can do it..why are we lagging behind in California??
I worked on Uber briefly while we tested the early version of UberEats which involved distributing burritos in San Francisco during lunchtime.
The restaurant making the burritos would have to pre-make the burritos between 7am and 10:30am and ensure that they were made available to supply depots around the city.
From 11am-1PM we would accept orders in the app. An order would be dispatched to a bike or walking courier who would walk the burrito from the supply depot to the consumer who ordered it. The goal was to make sure you had a hot lunch and could get it quickly.
When it worked, it was awesome and it helped validate the consumer demand very clearly. But we lost a lot of burritos due to spoilage and no amount of data analysis and better supply positioning could make up for it. It was also not at all economically viable to bake in a 20-30% loss rate and price the burritos high enough to grow as a business. People will pay a lot for on-demand food, but we found they were willing to wait 30 minutes (if it came straight from the restaurant) and pay a little more (if we dispatched with more courier delays), so the on-demand marketplace was born.
With the COVID-19 vaccine, right now I think it would be political suicide to accept a 30% daily loss rate on expired vaccines, even if it meant we vaccinated people twice as fast. There would need to be a higher vaccine supply available where vaccine expiry becomes as moot point as a spoiled burrito.
Vaccine vans make sense for areas without normal medical access. This is why developing nations do it: it is the easiest way to roll out medical care to people who don't normally have it.
In the US (and most of Europe...) people have plenty of access to more equipped medical facilities. My local pharmacy that I go to for the flu shot has more drugs than would even fit in a van - even assuming one does of each drug. This is typical for any developed country. So it makes sense for us to use that existing supply chains as much as possible.
Note that West Virginia - the state that has the best record as to getting vaccines into arms stated the key to their success was using the existing pharmacies in the state (not just the big national chains, all the independents). The states that are doing the worst are trying to develop some new infrastructure just for this.