When effective COVID-19 vaccines are developed, their supply will inevitably be scarce. The World Health Organization (WHO), global leaders, and vaccine producers are already facing the question of how to appropriately allocate them across countries. And while there is vocal commitment to "fair and equitable" distribution, what exactly does "fair and equitable" look like in practice?

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Now, nineteen global health experts from around the world have proposed a new, three-phase plan for vaccine distribution—called the Fair Priority Model—which aims to reduce premature deaths and other irreversible health consequences from COVID-19. Published this week in Science, the paper was led by Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, Ph.D., vice provost for Global Initiatives and chair of Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Though little progress has been made to describe a single, global distribution framework for COVID-19 vaccines, two main proposals have emerged: Some experts have argued that healthcare workers and high-risk populations, such as people over 65, should be immunized first. The WHO, on the other hand, suggests countries receive doses proportional to their populations.