Tractor trailers loaded with suitcase-sized containers of COVID-19 vaccine were to leave Pfizer Inc’s manufacturing facility in Kalamazoo, Michigan, yesterday morning — launching the largest and most complex vaccine distribution project in the US, where the virus is raging.
US regulators on Friday authorized the vaccine from Pfizer and partner BioNTech for use, and US marshals would accompany the tightly secured shipments from the factory to their final destinations.
“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 United Parcel Service (UPS) Healthcare, said on Saturday.
Photo: AFP / US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)
Pfizer’s dry-ice cooled packages can hold as many as 4,875 doses, and the first leg of their journey would be from Kalamazoo to planes positioned nearby. Workers would load the vaccine — which must be kept at sub-arctic temperatures — onto the aircraft that will shuttle them to UPS or FedEx air cargo hubs in Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee, respectively.
From there, they would 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, who could also be carrying holiday gifts and other parcels, would deliver many of the “suitcases” into the hands of healthcare providers today. The shipments are the first of three expected this week.
Healthcare workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are first in line to receive the inoculations.
Pfizer’s inoculations have the most restrictive requirements for shipping and storage temperature, minus-70°C.
UPS and FedEx are giving the vaccine top priority, reserving space on planes and trucks at a time when the COVID-19 pandemic and holiday-related e-commerce are creating more demand for deliveries than carriers can handle.
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.
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