Episode description

Today on our news analysis show 16 Minutes — since this show is all about teasing apart what’s hype/ what’s real and where we are on the long arc of innovation — we're taking a quick pulse-check with the experts on just where we are with the COVID vaccine rollout in the U.S. 

Our experts today are Dr. Bob Wachter, the Chair of the Department of Medicine at UCSF — he has come to additional prominence during the pandemic as a regular public resource, providing daily updates & reports on Twitter throughout the crisis. He’s also currently guest-hosting the “In the Bubble” podcast. We also have Dr. Vineeta Agarwala, a general partner in a16z bio who is also a practicing clinician at Stanford Hospital. 

You can catch our ongoing coverage of all things vaccines at a16z.com/vaccines.

But in this episode we cover where we really are right now with the vaccine rollout — is it working or not, given all the buzz and mixed messages we’ve been hearing on social and in the media? We cover everything from distribution, in practice (that is, from the clinical/ on-the-ground perspective); to other dynamics (such as new strains), to demand for the vaccines (including vaccine hesitancy, and it's not just about anti-vaxxers); to the data (which is where we start). On Friday the CDC reported that about 77 million people in the U.S. have currently received at least one dose of a COVID vaccine, with about 42 million who have been fully vaccinated.