States and COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution | OAS Episode 119

Every state in the country is involved in distributing and administering the two COVID-19 vaccines now approved for use by the US. Food and Drug Administration. Each state is working with a plan that it created in consultation with the federal government.

On this podcast we discuss how those plans were created, how they’ve had to change as the pandemic has progressed and what lies ahead.

Our guests are Hemi Tewarson, an expert in state plans to distribute the COVID-19 vaccines. She is a visiting senior policy fellow at the Margolis Center for Health policy at Duke University. As a health policy expert, she has studied the state vaccine plans and discusses how those are working, changes in federal guidance and when everyone will have access to the vaccine.

Our other guest is Tahra Johnson, a policy expert at NCSL. Tahra discusses state legislative action related to vaccine plans and how legislators can get involved in the planning process.

Resources

• COVID-19 Vaccination Program- Interim Playbook, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• State Action on Coronavirus (COVID-19), NCSL COVID-19 Legislation Database
• "First COVID-19 Vaccine Administered in the U.S.," State Legislatures magazine
• Framework for Equitable Allocation of COVID-19 Vaccine, National Academy of Medicine
• OAS Episode 119 Transcription
• State Health Action on Coronavirus (COVID-19)
• "State Legislatures Inject Momentum Into COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts," State Legislatures magazine