First Pfizer Inc Covid-19 vaccine shipments leave Michigan
The Telegraph Online
December 14, 2020
Reuters
The US expects to immunize 100 million people, or about 30 per cent of its population, by the end of March.
The first shipments of Pfizer Inc’s Covid-19 vaccine left a factory
in Michigan early on Sunday on a convoy of semi trucks, kicking off a
historic effort to stop a surging pandemic that is claiming more than
2,400 lives a day in the US.
Mask-wearing workers at a Pfizer factory in Michigan began packing
the first shipments of its vaccine in dry ice shortly after 6.30am on
Sunday. Three trucks carrying pallets of boxed, refrigerated vaccines
rolled away from the Kalamazoo facility at 8.29am, escorted by body
armour-clad security officers in a pickup truck and an SUV.
The US expects to immunize 100 million people, or about 30
per cent of its population, by the end of March, US Operation Warp Speed
chief adviser Dr Moncef Slaoui said in an interview with Fox News
Sunday.
About 2.9 million doses of the vaccine are to travel by plane and
guarded truck from Pfizer facilities in Michigan and Wisconsin to
designated distribution locations, mostly hospitals. Gen. Gustave F.
Perna, the chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed, the federal
effort to bring a vaccine to market, said that 145 sites would receive
the vaccine on Monday, 425 on Tuesday and 66 on Wednesday. He likened
the operation to the Allied invasion of Europe in World War II.
“D-Day was the beginning of the end, and that’s where we are today,”
he said, cautioning it would still take months “to eventually achieve
victory.”
In a novel process that will need to become daily routine, workers
removed pizza-boxed sized cartons containing vaccine vials from a
freezer. They placed them in large, blue coolers, before these were
boxed and labelled, as shown on a network television video feed.
The massive logistical effort is complicated by the need to transport
and store the vaccine developed with German partner Biotech SE at
minus 70 degrees Celsius, requiring enormous quantities of dry ice or specialized ultra-cold freezers.
Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes headed to the trucks.
The long-awaited moment comes as the US death toll was approaching
300,000 and infections and hospitalizations set daily records. It will
take months before most US residents can get a Covid-19 vaccine.
The federal government plans to release the nation’s first 2.9
million doses to 64 states, US territories and major cities, as well as
five federal agencies. Although the federal government is coordinating
distribution efforts, states have the final say over who gets the first
shots. The federal government is sending the first shipments to more
than 600 locations.
Companies in a range of industries are lobbying state and federal
officials to give priority to their workers as millions wait for the
vaccine and a return to life free from the fear of the deadly illness.
The Pfizer/Biotech vaccine in a large clinical trial was 95 per cent
effective in preventing illness. It is not yet known if it prevents
infection or transmission of Covid-19 by those who are vaccinated.
US regulators late on Friday authorized emergency use of the vaccine,
following similar moves by the UK and Canada, less than a year after
the first cases were reported in the US.
We have spent months strategizing with Operation Warp Speed officials
and our healthcare customers on efficient vaccine logistics, and the
time has arrived to put the plan into action,” Wes Wheeler, president of
UPS Healthcare, said on Saturday.
Pfizer’s dry-ice cooled packages can hold as many as 4,875 doses. The
first leg of their journey will be from Kalamazoo to planes positioned
nearby. The aircraft will shuttle vaccine packages to United Parcel
Service or FedEx air cargo hubs in Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis,
Tennessee, respectively.
From there, they will be trucked or flown to facilities close to the 145 US sites earmarked to receive the first doses.
Familiar UPS and FedEx package delivery drivers are giving the vaccine top priority over holiday gifts and other parcels.
They will deliver many of the “suitcases” into the hands of healthcare providers on Monday. The shipments are the first of three expected this week.
Both companies have expertise handling fragile medical products and are leaving little room for error. They
are providing temperature and location tracking to backup devices embedded in the Pfizer boxes, and tracking each shipment throughout its journey.
Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are first in line to receive the inoculations of a two-dose regimen given about three weeks apart.
They will deliver many of the “suitcases” into the hands of healthcare providers on Monday. The shipments are the first of three expected this week.
Both companies have expertise handling fragile medical products and are leaving little room for error. They
are providing temperature and location tracking to backup devices embedded in the Pfizer boxes, and tracking each shipment throughout its journey.
Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are first in line to receive the inoculations of a two-dose regimen given about three weeks apart.
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