Pfizer's vaccine was first transported to the US in late November and brought to the company's Kalamazoo, Michigan facility. Shippers descended on the facility over the weekend with trucks, airplanes, and armed guards to get the first doses to hospitals across the country quickly and safely.
Here's how Pfizer's COVID-19 vaccine gets from Michigan into your bloodstream.
Pfizer's Kalamazoo facility was a beehive of activity over the weekend following Friday's emergency authorization of the first COVID-19 vaccine from the Food and Drug Administration.
The authorization was expected and Pfizer had been preparing for a nationwide rollout.
Workers spent the weekend preparing for the first shipments, which departed on Sunday.
Just weeks prior to the authorization, a United Airlines Boeing 777-200 brought the first doses of the vaccine into the US from Brussels, Belgium on a chartered flight.
United had overcome one of the largest limitations to flying Pfizer's vaccine, its excessive dry ice requirements, with the help of the Federal Aviation Administration. by receiving authorization to carry five times the normal amount of dry ice that the airline could normally.
Each shipment is packed with over 20 kilograms of dry ice to keep the vaccine at its ideal storage temperature of -94 degrees Fahrenheit.
Any higher and the vaccine can become ineffective and every dose counts towards ending the pandemic.
Its temperature requirement is among the largest hurdles in transporting the Pfizer vaccine, with competing vaccines from Moderna and Johnson & Johnson having less strict requirements.
The first step of the transportation process is then loading the shipments onto refrigerated trucks.
Some trucks will go to the nearby airport while others will travel across the country. Trucks have a higher tolerance for dry ice shipments since the truck is separate from the trailer.
Then, it's time to finally hit the road!
In just a few hours, these vaccines will travel across the US in preparation for the first inoculations the next day.
US Marshals provided escorts for the vaccine while on the road.
The vaccine is a huge target for theft due to the drug's high importance.
But the first convoy encountered no issues along the route to Lansing's Capital Region International Airport and Grand Rapids' Gerald R. Ford International Airport where aircraft awaited to take the vaccine onwards.
Kalamazoo has its own airport but those in Lansing and Grand Rapids are the closest with service from the large cargo airlines like UPS Airlines and FedEx Express.
US Marshals were also on hand at the airport as the massive containers were loaded onto the Boeing 757-200F, alongside standard boxes.
But while flying with iPhone orders and Amazon purchases, airlines have stated they'll give the vaccine priority.
Vaccines and other pharma products are already given priority due to their perishable natures.
Captaining the UPS flight was Houston Mills, UPS' vice president of flight operations & safety.
And it's off to the UPS Worldport in Louisville, Kentucky, where the shipments will be distributed across the UPS network.
After a quick 56-minute flight south, the jet arrived in Louisville after an uneventful flight. The FAA has said it will give priority to vaccine flights moving forward to ensure no issues.
Now in Louisville, the shipments can be sorted onto other aircraft and trucks. UPS Airlines flies across the US and as far as Dubai from Louisville with Asian cities just a one-stop flight away via Anchorage.
UPS Airlines alone has a fleet of over 275 aircraft, with the largest being the Boeing 747-8F.
Once they arrive at their destinations, the vaccines are loaded onto trucks like this one, the standard brown UPS delivery truck.
Hospitals around the US received the vaccine by Monday with the first inoculations occurring on Monday morning.
Hospitals went from receiving their first known COVID-19 patients to receiving the vaccine in less than a year.
Pop open the box and this is what you'll find, a small 5-dose vial of vaccine.
In New York, nurse Sandra Lindsay was the first to receive the shot. Healthcare workers and the elderly will be the first to receive the shot.
No comments