Logistics Get 'Harder' For COVID-19 Vaccine, Says Art Caplan

The United Kingdom delivered the first shot in its COVID-19 vaccination program on Tuesday, becoming the first Western country to deliver a broadly tested vaccine to the general public. Two people who received the Pfizer and BioNTech shot developed allergic reactions, but recovered.

Medical ethicist Art Caplan spoke with Boston Public Radio on Wednesday about what this latest development means for the vaccine’s rollout.

“You’re probably going to have to wait after you get the vaccine - like an hour in the place where you get it - to make sure you don’t have that kind of reaction,” he said. “So that makes it harder, logistically, because now you’ll have people lined up, trying to find a place to sit them, and once you unfreeze the Pfizer vaccine, you have to administer it all like 500 at a time.”

Caplan also worries that anti-vaxxers will use this as fuel against the vaccine.

“You’re probably going to see anti-vax people use that to scare people away from the vaccine,” he said. “That would be unfortunate.”

Art Caplan is the Drs. William F and Virginia Connolly Mitty Chair, and director of the Division of Medical Ethics at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine.