Immunization to COVID-19 is supposed to solve our problems—but it’s starting to trigger even bigger ones. Faced with a pandemic that paralyzed the world, a vaccine has always seemed like the obvious solution. A natural challenge demands a scientific fix. Unlike social distancing and lockdowns, a vaccine seems simple and uncontentious. Fire up the labs, pump up the bioreactors, and distribute billions of doses. In the coming weeks, we expect the first news of the decisive Phase III trials of the most promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates. The hope is that a successful vaccine would be a black box: a functional device that no one need second guess or closely inspect so long as it works. But as it turns out, constructing and distributing a vaccine may solve a set of political and economic problems while also creating a set of new ones. We imagined that