A hopeful prediction from Washington DC in the LA Times for January 22: ‘Fauci provided updates on how scientists are tracking mutations of the virus, and said he hopes to see 70% to 85% of Americans vaccinated by summer’s end. If that happens, he said, “I believe that by the time we get to the fall, we will be approaching a degree of normality. It’s not going to be perfectly normal, but one that I think will take a lot of pressure off the American public.”’

Meanwhile in California, they don’t really know how many people have been vaccinated. On the same day: ‘“This vaccine distribution is being jerry-rigged on a famously fragmented health system and underfunded public health infrastructure, which produces inconsistencies county by county and provider by provider but also problems with getting timely data to see how California as a whole is doing,” said Anthony Wright, executive director of Health Access California and a member of the state’s vaccine advisory committee.’

But now it’s January 28, and at least two seniors have gotten the first dose of Moderna vaccine, thanks to the incredible

• organization (everything at KP has been online for a decade or more so they can predict the numbers they will need–kind of like a universal health care system would),
• planning (setting up cold storage and procuring a large number of doses of vaccine)
• efficiency (“mass” vaccination sites at least a dozen locations within a drive from the Bay Area), and
• generosity (allowing non-KP members like Rachel and former KP members like me to receive no co-pay vaccinations)

of Kaiser Permanente Northern California. Apparently KP Southern California does not have the same quantity of vaccine and is to date still limiting access to people 75 and older, even though the state announced on January 14 that 65 was the new cutoff age. But we two are happy, once having passed the anxiety of two days of wondering whether it would really happen.

Rachel on Tuesday in San Francisco:

Me on Wednesday in Oakland:

We are starting to feel more confident about resuming what were going to be our retired lives, being able to visit our children, travel abroad, museums, dinners, tango, art classes, life.

And this morning, Newsom’s team finally realized how messed up the distribution was in California and cut a deal with Blue Shield (apparently he has some lobbying contacts with them) to run the distribution to counties and hospitals going forward. From the LA Times: ‘The new statewide vaccine distribution network overseen by Blue Shield will comprise a wide variety of locations at which vaccinations will be administered, including pharmacies, community health centers and temporary pop-up locations.’ We will see in a month whether Blue Shield is up to the task–it sounds daunting in a state as big and far-flung as California.

And a final vaccination note, also from the LA Times today. The airline industry (which I have increasingly less empathy for) is asking the WHO to say that passengers with vaccination cards should be able to skip all the quarantining, testing and other requirements for international air travel. Hopefully, WHO will not fall for this pressure without having scientific data indicating that there is a dramatic decline in transmissivity of virus from those who have been vaccinated. Which I hope is the case!