Two small items of note today. California counties still cannot get 3-week predictions (much less promises) of how much vaccine they will be allocated by the state. The distribution process is being transferred to Blue Shield under a contract. The governor says talk to Blue Shield about it, and Blue Shield has no comment. We’re almost in March. The post-Trump distribution problem is still largely broken, and you cannot blame it on winter storms.

And in better news, the FDA announced that long Phase III clinical trials will not be needed for already-approved vaccines that are going to be reformulated to combat new SARS-CoV-2 variants. Instead blind trials involving just hundreds of subjects will be adequate, meaning that “generation 2” vaccines could be available within months of research and development.