Track: Supply Chain and Logisitcs Competition

Abstract

Despite the start of a new year, COVID-19, a disease caused by a novel coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2, continues to impact people's lives on a global scale. The outbreak of the disease was first reported on December 31, 2019. At this time, governments all over the world are scrambling to vaccinate their citizens. As of January 2021, six vaccines have been approved by a handful of countries. Approving a new vaccine and then mass-distributing it to an entire nation is a pressing yet complicated process. This paper will focus on defining successful vaccine deployment and discussing how certain countries are currently handling the task. The global COVID-19 vaccine supply chain will be discussed for each of the six vaccines and touch on various topics such as the development process, manufacturing locations, storage requirements, proximity to approved countries, capacity, and how demand is being fulfilled. This information will be used to evaluate how well different governments are obtaining and distributing the vaccines and offer suggestions to improve this process moving forward.