Historic US vaccine campaign begins with first shipments ‘delivering hope’ to millions

The temperature gauge on the door of a special freezer to contain Pfizer vaccine is displayed at LAC USC Medical Center during the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Los Angeles, California, USA, December 10 2020. REUTERS / Mike Blake

LOS ANGELES – The first shipments of the COVID-19 vaccine left in trucks and planes early Sunday, kicking off a historic effort to stop a growing pandemic that claims more than 2,400 lives a day in the United States.

Workers wearing face masks at a Pfizer Inc factory in Michigan began packing the first shipments of the vaccine developed with German partner BioNTech SE on dry ice shortly after 6:30 am ET (1130 GMT) on Sunday.

Trucks carrying pallets of refrigerated vaccine in boxes began to move away from the Kalamazoo facility, escorted by security officers dressed in bulletproof vests. The shots were then loaded onto FedEx and United Parcel Service planes that will carry the precious cargo across the country.

“Today, we are not hauling cargo, we are providing hope,” said Andrew Boyle, co-president of Boyle Transportation, who was hired by UPS to help transport the vaccine from the factory to a waiting plane in Lansing, Michigan.

Bonnie Brewer, an employee at Boyle, 56, said decades of experience transporting chemotherapies and other life-saving drugs prepared her for Sunday’s historic race.

“It feels amazing,” Brewer told Reuters after the cargo was safely delivered.

US hospitals are preparing for the first injections to go up in arms on Monday, but it will be months before most Americans can receive the COVID-19 vaccine. Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are the first to receive inoculations of a two-dose regimen administered three weeks apart.

More than 100 million people, or about 30% of the US population, could be immunized by the end of March, said US Operation Warp Speed ​​chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui at a interview with Fox News Sunday.

That would still leave the country well below the herd immunity that would halt transmission of the virus, so masks and social distancing will be needed for months to control the devastating outbreak.

Health officials will also have to overcome widespread hesitancy about new vaccines, as many Americans worry that the record speed at which they were developed may have compromised safety. Only 61% of US respondents said they are willing to get vaccinated, a Reuters / Ipsos poll showed.

“However, it is critical that the majority of Americans decide and agree to get vaccinated,” Slaoui said. “We are very concerned about the hesitation we see.”

Special delivery

The enormous logistical effort is further complicated by the need to transport and store the Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine at minus 70 Celsius (minus 94 Fahrenheit), requiring massive amounts of dry ice or specialized ultra-cold freezers.

Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes made their way to the trucks. The long-awaited moment comes as the death toll in the United States approached 300,000 and infections and hospitalizations were setting daily records. Some models project that deaths could reach 500,000 before vaccines are widely available in the spring and summer.

Slaoui said the United States expects to have about 40 million doses of vaccines, enough for 20 million people, distributed by the end of December. That would include vaccines from both Pfizer and Moderna Inc. An external FDA advisory panel is scheduled to consider the Moderna vaccine on Thursday, and emergency use is expected to be granted shortly thereafter.

Although the federal government is coordinating distribution efforts, the states have the final say on who receives the first injections. The federal government is sending the first shipments to more than 600 places, as millions await the vaccine and a return to a life free from fear of the deadly disease.

The Pfizer / BioNTech vaccine in a large clinical trial was 95% effective in preventing disease. It is not yet known whether it prevents infection or transmission of COVID-19 by those who are vaccinated.

Family UPS and FedEx package delivery drivers are giving the vaccine top priority over holiday gifts and other packages as health officials plead with the public to avoid holiday gatherings after a spike in hospitalizations and deaths after Thanksgiving.

Both companies are experienced in handling fragile medical products and leave little room for error. They provide temperature and location tracking to backup devices built into Pfizer boxes and track each shipment throughout its journey.

/ MUF

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