December 13, 2020

Watch the First COVID-19 Vaccine Shipments Leave the Warehouse

The first shots will be given within days.

A truck loaded with the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine leaves the Pfizer Global Supply Kalamazoo manufacturing plant in Portage, Mich., Sunday, Dec. 13, 2020.AP Photo/Morry Gash, Pool

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As the United States ends its deadliest week since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, the first trucks full of COVID-19 vaccines have left a manufacturing facility Sunday morning, marking the start of the biggest vaccine distribution effort in US history. 

Many people awoke this morning to images and videos of UPS semi trucks full of vaccines pulling out of a Kalamazoo, Mich., warehouse just two days after the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency approval of the Pfizer vaccine. The first batch of about 3 million vaccines is expected to reach high-risk health care workers and nursing homes. 

The New York Times reports that after vaccines were packed in dry ice and loaded on to the trucks Sunday, “workers applauded as the first truck left the plant carrying a load of the vaccine.”

UPS and Fedex are working together to handle the staggered distribution of the vaccine getting it 636 locations across the country. The two shipping giants (who usually compete instead of working hand in hand) will monitor and track all vaccine shipments closely, and also alert all delivery drivers and pilots so they know they’re carrying a vaccine package. 

The FAA alerted airports nationwide that they should be fully prepared for aircraft carrying the vaccines. “This includes both those airports identified for shipments that will transition at airports as well as those that that may serve as alternate/divert airports, even if they will not be a primary destination for aircraft carrying COVID-19 vaccines.” 

Pfizer’s vaccine is estimated to be about 95 percent effective, and it has already been approved in the United Kingdom and Canada. It’s one of several vaccines developed in record speed as the coronavirus pandemic expected to be approved for use in the United States. Almost 300,000 people have died of COVID-19 in the United States and more than 16 million have been infected. In the last few weeks the numbers spiked in many states as millions of people continued to ignore CDC recommendations against traveling for the holidays. This morning, former CDC director Tom Frieden took to Twitter to warn that while help is on the way, Americans must still work hard to prevent the spread of the virus:

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

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