After a year since the pandemic began rampaging the nation and half a million lives have perished because of it, the race against the clock to beat the new U.K. and South Africa variants are put to the test against vaccine distribution. 

President Joe Biden formally announced on Jan. 25 his goal to hit 150 million doses given within his first 100 days in office, which he retracted a day later to restate his goal of 100 million in these first 100 days. This means he will have until April 26 to distribute. The president’s chief of staff said that this goal was “ambitious.” Feb. 18 marked his 29th day in office with 39,756,546 shots in arms, which, according to NBC News data editor Joe Murphy, the U.S. isn’t too far behind the average rate necessary to reach his original 150 million dose administration goal. 

As of Feb. 17, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) reported that Maryland has administered 14,939 doses per 100,000 residents, and approximately 4,196 have received a second dose. Though this may appear to be a staggering number, it only equates to 903,127 doses given out of Maryland’s total residential population of roughly over six million people. However, Maryland remains one of the states with the smallest share of population administered with at least one shot, which is about 12% and about 75% of doses used.

Montgomery County distribution is currently on phase 1C, which includes adults over 65, health care providers and K-12 education staff. The county has left countless residents angered as there simply aren’t enough vaccines to give; vaccination centers even leave people without shots after waiting for hours in line. Considering the new reopening plan starting on March 1, students and staff have strong feelings about how administration has been handled thus far. 

Sociology teacher Amy Buckingham said she feels disappointed with how the rollout has been going so far, however, she is “still hopeful that it will improve and supply will increase, and we will be vaccinated before we return to the buildings. But I think there are a lot of challenges to that, that may or may not be able to be overcome,” Buckingham said.

Senior Thomas Vlahos said that he finds it annoying how slowly distribution is going. “I think if they really do desperately want to put our kids back into school safety and return to a normal life, then there is no reason why our county shouldn’t be speeding up the distribution. We all want to reach herd immunity, which will be the key to a normal life, and if we want to be there sooner than later, then Montgomery County should be speeding up the distribution,” Vlahos said.