Trucks With First COVID-19 Vaccine in US Are on the Road

Three semi trucks carrying the first shipments of Pfizer Inc’s COVID-19 vaccine left a factory in Michigan early Sunday, Dec 13, kicking off a historic project to stop a surging pandemic that is claiming more than 2,400 lives a day in the United States.

Mask-wearing workers at a Pfizer factory in Michigan began packing the first shipments of its COVID-19 vaccine in dry ice shortly after 6:30 a.m. ET (1130 GMT) on Sunday. Three trucks carrying pallets of boxed, refrigerated vaccines rolled away from the central Michigan facility at 8:29 a.m., escorted by body armor-clad security officers in a pickup truck and a SUV.

In a novel process that will need to become daily routine, workers removed pizza-boxed sized cartons containing vaccine vials from a freezer. They placed them in large, blue coolers, before these were boxed and labeled, as shown on a network television video feed.

Workers clapped and whistled as the first boxes headed to the trucks. The long-awaited moment comes as the death toll was approaching 300,000 and infections and hospitalizations set daily records in the United States. It will take months before most U.S. residents can get a COVID-19 vaccine.

The federal government plans to release the nation’s first 2.9 million doses to 64 states, U.S. territories and major cities, as well as five federal agencies. 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.