Vaccination Nation: Vaccine Diplomacy and the U.S. Vaccine Rollout

The COVID-19 vaccine rollout has as of yet received little attention from geographers. This chapter seeks to look at the spatial aspects of the vaccine distribution, starting with a review of previous vaccination campaigns, then looking at the various types of COVID-19 vaccine. Paying attention to issues of disparities in access, this chapter investigates the U.S. rollout as well as that of other countries. A look is also taken into the emerging vaccine diplomacy, as well as the international program COVAX designed to help distribute the vaccine. This chapter finds that the U.S. vaccine rollout is flawed with people of color more likely to experience difficultly in receiving the vaccine. It is also a spatially uneven rollout, with states distributing vaccine at varying rates across the country. The U.S. response on the international stage also faces some difficulty, with states such as China and Russia pulling ahead in the field of vaccine diplomacy at the expense of American influence abroad. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022.

Pediatric surgery nurses lead and coordinate COVID-19 recovery efforts

Planned pediatric surgeries stopped to prevent the spread of COVID-19, pre-serve beds for those who acquired the virus, and to maintain the supply of per-sonal protective equipment (PPE) for those caring for patients as part of the COVID-19 emergency response. In children awaiting surgery, nurses’ pre-oper-ative assessments of their current state, function, and pain are critical to their positions in line for surgeries and procedures. Currently, surgery resumption depends on hospital administrators, operating room schedulers, and families’ abilities to reach out. Evaluating outcomes in delayed pediatric surgeries may inform behaviors when cancelling and rescheduling surgeries in the future. As care teams re-engage with patients, pediatric surgery nurses must compel their multidisciplinary teams to maintain contact and relationships with children and their families throughout the delay. Building a nursing framework now for future emergency surgery lockdowns will make care teams more effective during the next crisis. © 2020, Anthony J. Jannetti Inc.. All rights reserved.