Webinar-Challenges in COVID Vaccine Allocation & Distribution
Webinar-Challenges in COVID Vaccine Allocation & Distribution
January 8, 2021
9:00 - 10:30 A.M.
The COVID-19 pandemic poses profound ethical, legal, and social challenges to researchers, clinicians, public health authorities, legal professionals, and communities. This webinar will focus on challenges in COVID-19 vaccine allocation and distribution. Expert panelists will address how to identify priority groups for vaccine allocation, advance population health and equity, meet the real-world challenges of vaccine distribution, and address vaccine hesitancy.
Panelists will respond to audience questions and will analyze the criteria used when setting priorities for vaccine allocation, issues likely to arise in national and global deployment, and how to address those issues effectively.
Moderated by:
Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH
Director, Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP)
University of Minnesota
Bio: Michael T. Osterholm, PhD, MPH, is Regents Professor, McKnight Presidential Endowed Chair in Public Health, and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP) at the University of Minnesota. He is a global authority on infectious disease and public health and member of the National Academy of Medicine. From June 2018 through May 2019, he served as Science Envoy for Health Security for the U.S. Department of State.
Susan M. Wolf, JD
Chair, Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences
McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy
Faegre Baker Daniels Professor of Law
Professor of Medicine
University of Minnesota
Bio: Susan M. Wolf, JD, is McKnight Presidential Professor of Law, Medicine & Public Policy; Faegre Baker Daniels Professor of Law; and Professor of Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Prof. Wolf is Chair of the University’s Consortium on Law and Values in Health, Environment & the Life Sciences. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM) and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Panelists are:
Helene D. Gayle, MD, MPH
President & CEO
The Chicago Community Trust
Bio: Helene D. Gayle has been president and CEO of The Chicago Community Trust, one of the nation’s oldest and largest community foundations, since October 2017. An expert on global development, humanitarian and health issues, Dr. Gayle spent 20 years with the Centers for Disease Control, working primarily on HIV/AIDS. She worked at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, directing programs on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues. She also launched the McKinsey Social Initiative (now McKinsey.org), a nonprofit that builds partnerships for social impact. Dr. Gayle co-chaired the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine working group that produced the Framework for Equitable Allocation of Vaccine for the Novel Coronavirus.
Kristen Ehresmann, RN, MPH
Director, Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division
Minnesota Department of Health
Bio: Kristen Ehresmann is an epidemiologist and director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health. Ms. Ehresmann has led numerous outbreak investigations, published in peer review journals, and been an invited speaker at national meetings. She currently oversees the epidemiologic response for COVID-19.
Helen Branswell
Senior Writer, Infectious Disease
STAT
Bio: Helen Branswell is STAT’s infectious diseases and global health reporter. She came to STAT in 2015 with 15 years of experience covering health, with a focus on infectious diseases. Ms. Branswell was introduced to epidemic reporting during Toronto’s SARS outbreak in 2003; in the years since she has written about bird flu, the H1N1 flu pandemic, Ebola, Zika, and now leads STAT’s coverage of the coronavirus pandemic. She spent the summer of 2004 embedded at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as a CDC Knight Fellow. In 2010-11 she was a Nieman Global Health Fellow at Harvard, where she focused on polio eradication.