News Room

t's one of the biggest logistical challenges in modern history: How will millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses that must be kept at incredibly cold temperatures be quickly shipped across continents and oceans? One company is using its experience with tuna as a guide. Thermo King — which revolutionized the transportation of food through advances in temperature-controlled shipping before World War II — is working with pharmaceutical companies, governments and logistics firms to ensure vaccines are preserved as they travel to clinics and hospitals. To make this happen, they've reworked containers typically used to transport fresh tuna to Japan, which requires similar frigid conditions.

Rep. Jackie Speier joins MSNBC’s “American Voices” host Alicia Menendez to discuss the optimism behind support of the bipartisan Covid-19 relief aid proposal and what is at stake for millions of Americans come the end of the year as federal aid runs dry.

Any day now, weary health care workers in medical facilities throughout Georgia will be lining up to receive the first doses of a COVID-19 vaccine that’s expected to put America on a path to normalcy. At the same time, residents and workers will be rolling up their sleeves in the state’s nursing homes, which have borne the brunt of Georgia’s deaths during the coronavirus pandemic but are far from alone in the suffering.

Vaccines like to be kept cool, none more so than the Pfizer candidate for Covid-19, which has to be deep-frozen. And that's going to be an issue for developing countries -- and for rural areas in the developed world. The "cold chain" is just one of the challenges in distributing vaccines worldwide. There are plenty of others: decisions about priority populations and databases to keep track of who's received what vaccine, where and when. Additionally, different vaccines may have more or less efficacy with different population groups; and governments will need PR campaigns to persuade people that vaccines are safe.

We are nine months into the covid-19 pandemic, with many succumbing to face covering and physical distancing fatigue, and pockets of pervasive skepticism about the virus threat and its risk. No one is happy, and everyone has someone to blame for their anger, grief and malcontent. The question people are asking is, when will the pandemic end so we can stop wearing face coverings and physically distance?