News Room

Delivering a vaccine for a global pandemic that has caused nearly 1.5 million deaths and has infected more than 65 million people will require a logistical effort of extraordinary complexity. The three leading vaccine candidates, from Pfizer/BioNTech, Moderna, and AstraZeneca/Oxford, have very different requirements when it comes to shipping and storage, and even after the vaccines arrive at their destinations—the health clinics, hospitals, and pharmacies where vaccinations will occur—there are a host of logistical hurdles that this patchwork of health care providers must overcome to ensure efficient and equitable distribution.

Weeks before states expect to receive their first shipments of Covid-19 vaccines, conflicting messages from the federal government have obscured exactly how many doses may arrive. Some governors, including New York’s Andrew Cuomo and California’s Gavin Newsom, have made splashy announcements about how much of Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE’s vaccines they expect should the U.S. Food and Drug Administration authorize them this month. Other states can’t provide a solid answer given how quickly estimates change

Shortly before World War II, Minnesota-based U.S. Thermo Control Company introduced the revolutionary concept of transport refrigeration to the world, allowing trucks to haul frozen foods and perishables to every corner of the United States. The company, co-founded by renowned inventor Frederick McKinley Jones and businessman Joseph Numero, helped store items at controlled temperatures as they crossed “through mountain blizzards and desert heat,” according to a May 1950 article in the Minneapolis Sunday Tribune. During the war, these refrigeration units “kept food fresh on island bases and dropped into steaming jungle with parachute troops.” 

Karen Brinson Bell, executive director of the North Carolina State Board of Elections, said Nov. 24 that no spread of COVID-19 had been linked to voting in North Carolina. The NCSBE also said in a news release that there have been zero clusters of COVID-19 connected to voting sites in North Carolina. Are these claims accurate, and what counts as a “cluster”? Does that mean there weren’t any coronavirus cases connected to voting at all?

The United States is potentially days away from approving the first round of coronavirus vaccines just nine months after the global pandemic ripped through every state, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and crippled the once robust economy. And yet, millions have vowed not to take the fast-developed two-shot vaccines despite 95% efficacy rates from pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech and another from Moderna. Why the hesitancy and how long could the COVID-19 crisis continue as a result?