U.S. quarantines ‘too cold’ California and Alabama vaccine shipments
U.S. officials said Wednesday 16, December they quarantined several thousand doses of Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine in California and Alabama this week after an “anomaly” in the transportation process caused the storage temperature to get too cold.
Pfizer’s vaccine, which was developed with German drugmaker BioNTech, requires a storage temperature of around minus 70 degrees Celsius. Vials of the vaccine are stored in trays, which carry a minimum of 975 doses each, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Army Gen. Gustave Perna, who oversees logistics for President Donald Trump’s vaccine program Operation Warp Speed, told reporters that two trays of the vaccine that arrived at two separate locations in California had to be returned to Pfizer after the temperature somehow fell to minus 92 degrees Celsius.
The vaccine “never left the truck,” he said during a news briefing Wednesday. “We returned them immediately back to Pfizer and we sent immediate shipments to replace those two trays. We’re working with the FDA now, CDC, FDA and Pfizer to determine if that anomaly is safe or not, but we’re taking no chances and we can see that.”
He said the “anomaly” happened again in Alabama.
“All the way on the other side of the country in Alabama, two trays were received at one location. Same anomaly, went to minus 92. We were able to stop and quarantine the vaccine, stop and get a replacement shipment to Alabama,” he said.
It’s unclear what caused the storage temperature to fall. A Pfizer spokesperson issued the following statement: “The returned shipments – totaling ~3000 doses – will be reviewed internally by Pfizer following our quality investigative process, however, it’s Pfizer’s vision that its customers should not have to wait while these reviews take place. As designed, the control tower was able to intercept the shipments and seamlessly trigger resupply to be delivered to those customers.”
Americans began receiving some of the first shots of Pfizer’s vaccine on Monday after the Food and Drug Administration authorized the vaccine Friday. Officials and medical experts had already acknowledged that Pfizer’s vaccine would present some new logistical challenge as it has to be stored at ultracold temperatures.
“We’re talking super-cold. It’s completely unprecedented,” Soumi Saha, a pharmacist and vice president of advocacy for Premier, a consulting firm that works with thousands of hospitals and nursing homes, told CNBC in an interview last month.
She said it was “completely new territory” for health systems. “And so this is a brand-new logistical challenge in order to distribute this vaccine and get it to the right place and to do so while maintaining the integrity of the product,” she said.
During the briefing, Perna said vaccine deliveries in the U.S. remain on track, with another 886 orders expected to be shipped across the nation Thursday. The federal government delivered 2.9 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine this week. Next week, the government plans to ship an additional 2 million doses of Pfizer’s vaccine as well as 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s vaccine if cleared by the FDA, Perna said.
The FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, an outside group of medical experts that advises the agency, votes Thursday on whether to recommend Moderna’s vaccine for emergency use. A favorable vote from the committee will likely clear the path for Moderna’s vaccine to become the second one approved for use in the U.S. behind Pfizer’s. FDA clearance could come as early as Friday.
“It’s about a steady cadence of deliveries to the American people,” Perna said.
Read more at www.cnbc.com
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Betty Boop
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Re; “An “anomaly” in the transportation process caused the storage temperature to get too cold.”
I could see the temperature going too high because of losing power to the freezer units during transportation. But the temperature having gotten too cold, might have bene more because the temperature setting was set too low to begin with. Perhaps someone dialed in -94°(F) on a freezer unit that was set to operate with a Celsius setting.
The word “anomaly” was used four times in this story, but yet, there was no mention of what may have caused it. So what? Just go ahead and ship some more using the same ‘transporting logistics’?
“We’re talking super-cold [Yes -92°C is cold, I’m from Canada. But one has to wonder, how bad can it be storing these Pfizer’s vaccines at 12°C below the “required storage temperature of around minus 70 degrees Celsius”?]. It’s completely unprecedented – and “completely new territory” for health systems. [That’s too hard to believe. A basic search on the world wide web, and one will see several companies that market and sell ‘Ultra-Low-Temperature Freezers’. I used this as my search parameter – freezers+-70°C ] This is a brand-new logistical challenge [Where has Soumi been in the last decade or two that she has no idea that frozen vaccines have been shipped before?], in order to distribute this vaccine and get it to the right place [So another problem or (“anomaly”), could be losing the shipment all together? Hmm? Meanwhile; every item I’ve ordered something from Amazon, since this “COVID-19” got going (March 11, 2020), it always has, arrived at my house.], and to do so while maintaining the integrity of the product [That is my most serious concern, the integrity of these ‘products’ or, vaccines. Not to mention the integrity of Pfizer, as a company. They have been sued so many times, and have had to pay out hundreds of billions of dollars just because of contested integrity.].” – Soumi Saha.
[Mine]
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Joseph Olson
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Spiro Skouras has interesting interview with James Perloff at BeforeItsNews(.)com
on his book “Covid-19 and the Agenda to Come” > end WuFlu hysteria now
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rickk
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Vaccines – easy come, easy go…that very cold freezer is just like the planet where global warming affects Canada’s arctic and makes it warm ‘more’ than the rest of Canada…pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining – ever been to Canada? There is NO global warming in Canada – despite what Prime Minister fancy socks says…
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K Kaiser
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At -70 C (-94 F), there isn’t any biological process of any kind taking place.
Therefore, I find it hard to imagine that anything below the recommended -70 C for the storage/transportation of this vaccine could possibly be of concern.
Besides, show me a common “freezer” that goes down to either temperature.
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