Earlier this month, UMass officials led by UMass Medical School Chancellor Dr. Michael Collins and system President Marty Meehan proposed the state should partner with schools to build a program recruiting nursing and medical students to administer the COVID-19 vaccine. This group, led by UMass students, could then go around the state training others and speed up the distribution and delivery of the roughly 10 million vaccine doses the state will need for its adult population. UMass is now testing this effort in Worcester, and if it is successful, the state should consider implementing the plan widely as soon as possible. To date, America’s response to the coronavirus pandemic has been mismanaged and uneven, at best. Now with the solution of a vaccine at our doorstep, we continue to trip up in the execution phase, with a slow vaccine rollout. With hospitals in many states strained beyond capacity, more than 400,000 Americans dead, and a new variant of the virus spreading the disease quicker, now is the time for bold, fresh ideas. We can’t have any further delays in achieving herd immunity. There is too much at stake.