By PHILLIP MEYLAN

With the emergence of two vaccines with high levels of effectiveness, there’s a strong prospect of having powerful new tools to combat Covid-19 in the months ahead. But the road between a vaccine and society returning to normal is far from certain. Millions of doses will need to be produced and intelligently distributed, and critically, people must be willing to take them. The last few months have seen already-low confidence in such a vaccine fall even further, with just two-thirds of Americans expressing a willingness to be vaccinated when one becomes available. Similar trends are playing out globally. 

Bringing the pandemic under control will likely require successfully vaccinating 60–70% of the population to halt community transmission. Vaccine skepticism puts rapidly reaching that goal in jeopardy. Can the government at the state or federal level mandate vaccination? What is motivating this growing skepticism in Covid vaccination and how might those sentiments shift over time? This week, Phillip looked at 28 articles from 24 sources to explore likely pathways toward vaccination, as well as related vaccine skepticism.