Editorial: Transparency key to successful vaccine rollout

Illinois could be only three weeks from obtaining the first doses of a coronavirus vaccine.

It is incumbent on the top medical people in the state to be as transparent as possible, as soon as possible, about how that distribution will be handled and how safe and effective the vaccine is. And it is incumbent on the rest of us to be patient.

The Illinois Department of Public Health has asked the state's county health departments to aim for vaccinating 80% of the population. That will be a tall order. There are significant numbers of people who stubbornly cling to the notion that COVID-19 is a hoax. Moreover, there regrettably are too many people who still believe vaccination myths.

For the pandemic to be essentially "over," the vast majority of us need to be vaccinated. Public health officials who have been pushing the boulder uphill on getting citizens to mask up, socially distance themselves and keep their circle of contacts limited to the people they live with, now have a new challenge: They must convince citizens to be patient, and they must promote transparency about the efficacy and safety of the vaccine. They also must be open about sharing their internal process for deciding who gets the precious drug first.

How much vaccine Illinois will get from the federal government is in flux. What started out as a promise of 400,000 initial doses of the Pfizer vaccine dropped to about 85,000 doses within days. The number could change again.

This is where patience is key. If you aren't a medical worker, a first responder or are ill and over 65 you aren't going to be first in line. It is incumbent upon us to recognize that the protections we have been living with since March - and the full lives and livelihoods we have been denied - won't be a thing of the past until well into 2021, at least.

Many of us are ready, even eager, to get the vaccine as soon as it is available. But to get anywhere near 80% of our state's population vaccinated, we're going to need some of the skeptics to come aboard as well. Openly sharing information about a drug's clinical trials would help convince some. So would independent evaluations by experts who don't have a personal interest in any one drug's future.

As well, the state public health department needs to be upfront about the formula it uses to determine how many doses of vaccine each county gets. Will it be strictly by population? Will it be population with some consideration given to the state's current COVID-19 hot spots?

We have faith that a reasonable, fair process for distribution will be worked out. Not everybody will like it, of course, which is all the more reason to be entirely open about it. Anything that can be done should be done, to raise the numbers of Illinoisans who are vaccinated.