A vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine. | Justin Tallis/Pool via Getty Images

The case for going simpler on vaccine distribution.

America’s messy Covid-19 vaccination campaign should provide one overarching lesson for policymakers: Keep it simple.

In the lead-up to the vaccine, federal and state governments established priority groups for the vaccine. In the very first phase, vaccines would go to health care workers and nursing home residents. After, vaccines would go to front-line essential workers, older populations, and people with medical conditions that put them at a greater risk for Covid-19. The list of people eligible would expand from there.

It seemed simple enough, but then reality brought complications. Just giving vaccines to health care workers raised all sorts of issues: Do all health care workers get a vaccine? Does that include staff who never interact with any patients at