First Batches Of COVID-19 Vaccine Are Arriving in All 50 States. Meet The Army General Behind Distribution

Seven months of strategizing, $18 billion in funding and it’s all come down to this. Now that scientists at the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have authorized Pfizer/BioNTech’s COVID-19 vaccine, the U.S. government has cleared the way for the distribution of 2.9 million doses to the American public. It’s just the first round of shipments in what will be a months-long process to inoculate some 300 million Americans. The decision Friday night sets in motion a vast logistics chain designed to reach each corner of the country. It took meticulous planning to meet the challenge of delivering a sea of doses at controlled temperatures so doctors could administer shots as soon as next week. The blueprint for the national strategy is represented in a dozen maps and charts Scotch-taped to the walls of a seventh-floor office in downtown Washington, D.C., where General Gustave Perna and his team leading the government vaccine effort have devised the logistics operation that they hope will change the trajectory of American history. In an interview with TIME this week before FDA authorization, Perna compared vaccine delivery day to the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II, an event more commonly known as “D-Day.” He uses the same term when discussing plans for the day Pfizer will begin delivering America’s first shipment of vaccines. “This is a game changer,” he says. “Not to dramatize the situation we’re in, but we...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized COVID-19 Source Type: news