After supply, logistics emerges as biggest threat to vaccination programs

Places like the Philippines are now struggling to get shots into the arms of their citizens, millions of whom live on distant archipelagos or far-flung mountain tops

After losing her son to Covid-19 last year, 79-year-old Tomasa Valdez was desperate to get vaccinated. But on the remote Philippine island of San Salvador, where she lives, there were no shots to be had.  

Getting to the mainland, where vaccines were available, meant a boat ride that was arduous at her age and expensive given Valdez’s meager income from drying sea grass which she sells for less than 100 pesos ($1.95) a sack. Help only arrived in December 2021 -- 10 months after the Philippines began its national Covid vaccination program and about a year after Western nations like