Friday: We asked experts to assign a letter grade to the state’s vaccine rollout. Here’s what they said.

By Jill Cowan

Good morning.

On Thursday morning, Gov. Gavin Newsom rolled up his T-shirt sleeve and got vaccinated, marking the start of what he has described as the final stretch of an epic race to inoculate as many Californians as possible against the coronavirus.

The governor, who is 53, was newly eligible under the state’s vaccine rules, which as of the start of the month, allow anyone 50 and older to be vaccinated. And on April 15, in conjunction with a flood of supply promised by the Biden administration, eligibility will expand even further, to anyone 16 and older.

“We have an enormous opportunity in the next six to eight weeks to run the 100-yard dash,” Mr. Newsom told reporters on Thursday during another news conference at a vaccination site, this time in Los Angeles. “We’re this close.”

But the triumphant pronouncements and dazzling raw numbers — more than 18 million shots have been given to almost a third of California’s population — gloss over a messier reality.

From almost the first day shots were administered in the state, Dec. 14, the vaccine rollout has been dogged by a certain amount of confusion: There have been abrupt rule changes. And an opaque, multimillion-dollar contract with the insurer Blue Shield of California to manage the state’s vaccine rollout prompted an outcry from local officials, some of whom have suggested Mr. Newsom’s fear of being recalled was driving his decision-making.

Ultimately, though, how much has all of that affected the state’s outcomes?

I wanted to simplify the conversation. So I reached out to a dozen epidemiology, public health and equity experts throughout California and outside the state, and asked them to grade the state’s vaccine rollout and explain why.

The average grade they gave? B-

Nearly every expert I reached by phone or email in the last couple of weeks acknowledged the monumental nature of the task. But they also said that, like a capable student with clear advantages, California has a lot of room for improvement.

“California gets a C from me, the same grade I would use for a student who is engaging but could be doing much better with more effort and better study strategies,” said Dr. Alicia Fernandez, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, who specializes in Latino and immigrant health.

Andrew Noymer, a professor of population health and disease prevention at the University of California, Irvine, gave the state’s rollout a C, emphasizing that it was a “midterm, not a final.”

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