President-Elect Biden’s plan to attack COVID-19 includes a $20 billion plan for vaccine distribution in the U.S., hiring 100,000 public health workers to do vaccine outreach and contact tracing, and funding to ensure supplies of crucial vaccine components like small glass vials.
But in order to truly contain and end the COVID-19 pandemic, every country needs to vaccinate its population. As of last week, at least 42 countries had started rolling out safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, but none of them were low-income countries. The World Health Organization says that’s at least in part because rich countries have bought up the majority of the vaccine supply. In South Africa, health official Anban Pillay shares his country’s challenge securing doses.
NPR correspondents Rob Schmitz in Berlin, Phil Reeves in Rio de Janeiro and Daniel Estrin in Jerusalem discuss how the vaccine rollout looks in Germany, Brazil and Israel.
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