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December 14, 2020

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US embarks on vaccine blitz

WORKERS at a Pfizer factory in Michigan dispatched the first shipments of its COVID-19 vaccine shortly after 6:30am yesterday — launching the largest and most complex vaccine distribution project ever in the United States.

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. The long-awaited moment comes as infections and deaths from COVID-19 are surging in the United States. It will take months before most US residents can get a COVID-19 vaccine.

The federal government plans to release the nation’s first 2.9 million doses to 64 states, US territories and major cities, as well as five federal agencies. Health-care workers and elderly residents of long-term care homes are first in line to receive the inoculations.

Although the federal government is coordinating distribution efforts, states have the final decision over who gets the first shots. The federal government is sending the first shipments to more than 600 locations.

Companies in a range of industries are lobbying state and federal officials to give priority to their workers in the line of millions waiting for the vaccine and a return to life free from the fear of the deadly illness.

US regulators 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. 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.


 

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