Vaccinations

Alaska’s top doctor awoke last Tuesday not knowing her state would throw open access to coronavirus vaccines that afternoon, making everyone 16 and older eligible for immunization.

Two messages that morning made clear to the chief medical officer, Anne Zink, that it was time to act. The first was a warning from a nurse on a statewide call that appointments for a large weekend clinic were going unclaimed. The second was a question from the governor, Republican Mike Dunleavy, who had seen the latest immunization data and phoned Zink to ask, “Why are we slowing down?”