Amid the emergence of more virulent and perhaps more deadly COVID-19 variants, vaccination efforts have taken on even greater importance in forging a path out of lockdown and a return to economic normalcy in Western countries. Such efforts are already well underway in many states, administering vaccines produced by BioNTech/Pfizer, Moderna/NIAID, and Oxford/AstraZeneca (for more details see our recent Outlook). But the process so far has proven highly susceptible to production delays and distribution failures.

Here are some of the latest setbacks in the vaccination effort: