A historic vaccine rollout

THE first known U.S. inoculation against Covid-19since the Food and Drug Administration authorised emergency use of a vaccine came just as the nation’s death toll surpassed 300,000 people.

Now, the most ambitious vaccine rollout in American history promises to end a crisis that has jammed hospitals, overwhelmed funeral homes and brought much of the nation to a standstill.

But a return to some semblance of normalcy remains many months away. Most Americans won’t be eligible for a vaccine until spring at the earliest, and even with widespread inoculations, many pandemic-era public health measures will remain in place.

About 145 sites across the country were expected to receive the vaccine Monday, and an additional 500 were set to receive shipments by midweek, according to Gen. Gustave Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, which is overseeing the distribution. Pfizer expects to ship no more than 6.4 million doses this week.

Among the places receiving the initial batch was Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Los Angeles, where five healthcare workers were the first people in L.A. County outside a clinical trial to get the shots made by Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech.