(TNS) - If everything goes according to plan, much of California could come close to herd immunity levels of vaccination by late summer. Within weeks, the effects could be dramatic: very low case rates, people comfortably allowed to gather again, maybe even some looser rules around mask-wearing.

Of course, little about this pandemic has stuck to the plan.

Between the emergence of new coronavirus variants, unreliable vaccine supplies and uneven access to the doses available, it may take months or even years longer than anyone would like to hit herd immunity. It's possible California, the nation and the world may never get there.

That would be unfortunate, but not necessarily disastrous. The vaccines at hand are powerfully good at preventing severe illness, even with the variants that appear to be somewhat resistant, and they can be retooled to match the virus as it mutates. Vaccines will almost certainly reduce hospitalizations and deaths from COVID-19, and that could make the pandemic much more tolerable in the coming months, long before it's technically over.

"I'm hopeful we will be vaccinating the general public in a broader perspective by early summer. And we should see correspondingly wonderful impacts by early fall," said Dr. Catherine Blish, a Stanford infectious disease expert.

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