News Room

The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has been a nightmare for many Americans as they struggle through multi-step registration and appointment systems. The federal government had envisioned states using one national vaccine scheduling system, and it offered a contractor $44 million to develop it. But that system turned out to be so poorly designed that all but nine states opted out before even trying to adopt it.

Looking for the coronavirus vaccine? By spring or summer you could be headed to a sports stadium to get in line with thousands of other people. Ohio may be on track to join other states in creating mega vaccination sites that can handle people in huge numbers. Already New York City opened a site at Yankee Stadium and packed in people to line up for the vaccine. Logistics expert Prof. Christopher Tang of the UCLA Anderson School of Management said the mass distribution sites for the vaccine can be effective, but pose many problems.

Daniel Duncanson, the chief executive of a physician practice in Florida, finally got some COVID-19 vaccines for his front-line workers after haggling with a major hospital. But it’s not clear when more are coming amid a shift in strategy from health care providers to massive vaccination sites. “We need 200 doses for our employees’ second doses and I've got none in right now,” said Duncanson, CEO of SIMEDHealth. Duncanson said many doses in his county were recently committed to a vaccination effort at the University of Florida football stadium last week. Across the country, COVID-19 vaccines are increasingly being distributed in mass clinics built from scratch in stadiums rather than doctors' offices.

The coronavirus vaccine rollout is well underway and many Americans are growing more confident, hoping to plan their first trip using air transportation in more than a year. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 global health crisis, air travel has plummeted by 95 percent. Its lowest point was in April 2020. Air travel has somewhat bounced back since then with approximately 700,000 air passengers going through security checkpoints every day in U.S. airports. That’s down though from 2 million per day this time last year. With more Americans being immunized for the coronavirus and more people starting to consider air travel, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) and the airlines need to be ready to safely accommodate a higher number of air travelers ready to return to the skies.

This week, Iowa opened the next phase for vaccine distribution. Phase 1B includes frontline essential workers as well as Iowans 65 and older. But vaccine demand far exceeds supply, and has made rollout challenging, especially in the state’s many rural areas. For more than seven years, the Girls State Training School in Toledo has sat mostly empty and unused. But on Monday, the school campus’ main building is buzzing on the first day of Tama County’s COVID-19 vaccination clinic. Rooms that are still labeled for their previous tenants -- social workers, psychologists, administrators -- are now filled with health care workers, mostly volunteers, and elderly residents of the rural county of about 18,000.