US looks to turn tide as Pfizer's Covid-19 vaccine reaches public today

Expects to immunise 100 million people in the first three months of 2021

Workers at a Pfizer factory in Michigan dispatched the first shipments of its Covid-19 vaccine on Sunday. The first shots will be administered as early as Monday, an Army general organising the rollout said.
 
A network television video feed from the facility in Kalamazoo showed masked workers removing pizza-boxed sized cartons containing vaccine vials from a freezer, and placing them in large, blue coolers, before these were boxed and labeled. Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes were moved toward waiting trucks.
 
United States expects to have immunised 100 million people with the coronavirus vaccine by the end of the first quarter of 2021, the chief US adviser for efforts on Covid-19 vaccines said.

 

“We would have immunized 100 million people by the first quarter of 2021,” US. Operation Warp Speed chief adviser Dr. Moncef Slaoui said.
 
Healthcare workers and elderly people in long-term care facilities are expected to be the main recipients of the first wave of 2.9 million shots this month, with healthcare worker inoculations as soon as Monday and nursing home residents by the end of next week, US Army General Gustave Perna said.
 
US regulators late on Friday authorized the vaccine from Pfizer and partner BioNTech for use, and US marshals will accompany the tightly secured shipments from factory to final destination.

 
“We have spent months strategising 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 UPS Healthcare, said.
 
Pfizer's dry-ice cooled packages can hold as many as 4,875 doses, and the first leg of their journey will be from Kalamazoo to planes positioned nearby. Workers will load the vaccine — which must be kept at sub-Arctic temperatures — onto the aircraft that will shuttle them to United Parcel Service or FedEx air cargo hubs in Louisville, Kentucky, and Memphis, Tennessee, respectively.

 
From there, they will 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 may also be carrying holiday gifts and other parcels, will deliver many of the "suitcases" into the hands of healthcare providers on Monday. 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 degrees Celsius (minus 94°F). UPS and FedEx are giving the vaccine top priority, reserving space on planes and trucks at a time when pandemic- and holiday- related e-commerce are creating more demand for deliveries than carriers can handle.

 
Both firms 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.
 
States agree to stricter lockdown, says Merkel
 
Germany will enter a hard lockdown from Wednesday, with non-essential stores shuttered, employers urged to close workplaces and school children encouraged to remain at home.
 
The tighter restrictions — including a ban on gatherings over the New Year — will last until at least January 10 after a looser shutdown failed to halt a surge in daily coronavirus infections and deaths. Chancellor Angela Merkel agreed the measures with the heads of Germany’s 16 states in talks Sunday and warned of rising pressure on the nation’s health system.

 
“There is an urgent need for action,” Merkel told a news conference. “We have seen rising infections and exponential growth in recent days and that means that we have to grieve many dead.”
 
Kuwait approves Pfizer, Bahrain registers Sinopharm
 
Bahrain has approved Chinese-made Sinopharm Group Co.’s vaccine for widespread usage on Sunday while neighboring Kuwait authorized the use of Pfizer and BioNTech SE’s vaccine. In Latin America, Peru temporarily suspended trials of the Sinopharm vaccine after an unspecified “adverse event” was reported during a clinical trial. The health minister is investigating the event to determine if it’s related to the vaccine or something else.

 
Pak increases vaccine funds to $250 million
 
Pakistan has increased the funds allocated for purchasing Covid-19 vaccine to $250 million from the earlier amount of $150 million. It has also signed non-disclosure agreements with multinational companies under which the recipient country will not make details of the vaccine public, the Dawn News said. Parliamentary Secretary on National Health Services Nausheen Hamid said that the allocation for vaccine purchase had been raised to $250 million.