America’s Covid-19 vaccination programme is progressing at a staggering pace and states are beginning to reopen. But the country also tops world rankings when it comes to deaths from the virus. As worrying new variants emerge, could they now undermine America’s progress?

Across the US, communities of colour have been impacted disproportionately by the pandemic. Despite that, vaccinations of Black and Hispanic Americans have lagged. One person who’s trying to change that is retired clinical social worker, Cynthia Finch, in eastern Tennessee. By keeping an ever-expanding list of people in her community who want vaccines, she’s helped facilitate thousands of jabs. “We have created an access for our people of colour to get into the lines”.

Dr. Michael Osterholm is one of the world’s leading epidemiologists. In early 2020 he raised the alarm over the severity of the incoming pandemic. Now he’s warning that if the US doesn’t help vaccinate lower income countries quickly, it will continue to be impacted by dangerous new variants of Covid-19. “I have said for the past few months, that I thought the darkest days of the pandemic were still ahead of us… we are not out of the danger zone yet with this virus on a global level”.