The ambitious rollout effort is starting. As of Monday, hospitals will start getting the country’s first COVID-19 vaccine on Monday morning. After the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency authorization on Friday night of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech, the next step is ensuring the shots get to as many people as quickly as possible. Throughout the weekend, around 2.9 million doses of the vaccine are set to start making their way from Pfizer plants in Michigan and Wisconsin to distribution points, mostly hospitals, across the country under extremely tight security. Around 150 of the designated distribution centers will get the vaccine Monday, while 425 sites will get it Tuesday and 66 will have to wait until Wednesday.
Detailing the rollout effort, Army Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, the private-public partnership effort to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines, compared the beginning of the distribution drive to the 1944 invasion of Normandy. “You have heard me refer to today as D-Day,” Perna said. “Some people assumed that I meant the day of distribution. In fact, D-Day, in military, designates the day the mission begins. D-Day was a pivotal turning point in World War II. It was the beginning of the end. D-Day was the beginning of the end, and that’s where we are today.”
Although it is up to each state to decide on a rollout plan, health care workers and elderly people in long-term care facilities are expected to get the priority for the first wave of vaccines. That may in itself cause some problems because side effects from the vaccine could lead some to call out sick from work at a time when hospitals are already overburdened by COVID-19 patients. Some states will try to turn the first vaccinations into a media event in order to send the message that the shots are safe. In Jackson, Miss., for example, the state’s two top health officials will be getting the shots first in front of cameras.
A big part of what makes the distribution so challenging is that the vaccine must be stored at minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. The special boxes the shots are being shipped in can only be opened up to twice a day without risking losing the cold temperature. To try to push forward a seamless distribution effort, Pfizer is using specially developed containers that use dry ice and have sensors that allow each shipment to be tracked while ensuring they remain cold enough.
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