There is a pair of vaccination machines in Albany, Ga. The first one is in the employee gym at Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital. There, people run through the COVID-19 vaccination process with assembly-line efficiency. A beep at the door signals a temperature check, then clerical workers with computer tablets check people in before the main event: a jab in the arm on the basketball court, where an enormous American flag is pinned to the wall. This scene repeats about 900 times a day. Compare that scene to a year ago, when the hospital had just recorded its first cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. By the end of March 2020, there were 490 cases in surrounding Dougherty County. And so began one of the first COVID surges in the nation. For a time, Albany was a global COVID-19 hotspot.