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Two drugmakers, Pfizer and Moderna, have announced promising interim results for their vaccine candidates, raising hopes in the U.S. and abroad that the end of the pandemic may be in sight. But, if and when the vaccines are authorized by the Food and Drug Administration, distributing them presents a daunting challenge.
One big reason? One of the front-runners in the vaccine race — the one made by Pfizer — needs to be kept extremely cold: minus 70 degrees Celsius, which is colder than winter in Antarctica. Moderna has said that its vaccine needs to be frozen too, but only at minus 20 Celsius, more like a regular freezer.
Since there will be limited vaccine doses at first, immunization managers across the country will need to have plans to distribute any and all vaccine doses that are available. For months, they've been puzzling over the particular challenges presented by the Pfizer vaccine, which requires these ultra-cold conditions.
I love the way the media portrays every new development as impossibly difficult, it can't be done, like there has to be a freezer "colder than Antarctica". Then a few paragraphs later the writer allows that "Pfizer has tried to calm concerns about the challenges presented by these cold temperatures. It has designed its own packaging to keep doses super cold with dry ice, so that they can be stored for a few weeks without specialized freezers (the packaging has been informally nicknamed "the pizza box").
Well, duh. Just ship a "pizza box" every two weeks to every immunization manager and you don't need the dang Antarctica freezers. Just don't play with the dry ice.
I love the way the media portrays every new development as impossibly difficult, it can't be done, like there has to be a freezer "colder than Antarctica". Then a few paragraphs later the writer allows that "Pfizer has tried to calm concerns about the challenges presented by these cold temperatures. It has designed its own packaging to keep doses super cold with dry ice, so that they can be stored for a few weeks without specialized freezers (the packaging has been informally nicknamed "the pizza box").
Well, duh. Just ship a "pizza box" every two weeks to every immunization manager and you don't need the dang Antarctica freezers. Just don't play with the dry ice.
That would interfere with getting enough doses moving around the country to where they are needed
Later on in the article it speaks to the fact that temps will change as Pfizer gets more data
Regardless, I know of several hospitals in the area that now have proper low temp storage freezers in place waiting to be used. That is really GOOD NEWS!
They still have many supply chain challenges ahead even after FDA approval. It'll be a while yet before some of those are resolved! However, progress is being made to work out an effective delivery system
Gen. Gustave Perna, career Army supply officer in charge of Operation Warp Speed, says the vaccine doses are ready to ship NOW. They're just waiting for the word.
"Perna and his team are ready for when that authorization hopefully arrives. He told 60 Minutes contributor and CBS News national security correspondent David Martin that vaccine doses are ready to ship in as little as 24 hours after the FDA grants approval.
"The vaccines and the kits needed to administer the shots will be transported through partnerships Operation Warp Speed has forged with private companies including FedEx, UPS, and the medical supply firm McKesson.
“'My goal [is] tens of millions [of vaccine doses] in December hopefully and we expand into hundreds of millions [of doses in] January, February, March,' Perna said to 60 Minutes."
Logistics, baby!
We're so close. This is no time to get sloppy and careless over the holidays. So close...
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