With the announcement of the new Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer and BioNTech, logistics and storage will be an issue as well as rolling out the jabs themselves.

Covid vaccine temperature storage requirements are said to be -70°C which is far below what the average upright of chest freezer will store at but within range of a ULT Freezer (Ultra Low Temperature Freezer) which can store down as low as -86C.

ULT Freezers
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Ultra Low Temperature Freezers (sometimes called ULT, Medical, Pharmacy, Lab or Laboratory Freezers) are designed to store and protect medical samples and will achieve temperatures of -40°C to -86°C.

They are available as both upright and chest freezers depending on the required use with Ultra Low Temperature Deep Freezers generally used for longer term storage. Due to their use, most ULT Freezers are fitted with door locks and alarms.

Initial trials of the Pfizer covid-19 vaccine are going well with reports of it being 90% effective with no serious side effects. Protection is said to be achieved 28 days after the initiation of the vaccination, which consists of a 2-dose schedule taken 21 or 28 days apart. Both vaccinations must be from the same manufacturer.

The vaccine is said to last for up to 5 days (120 hours) if kept refrigerated between 2°C and 8°C.

Based on current projections they expect to produce up to 50 million vaccine doses globally in 2020 and up to 1.3 billion doses in 2021.

Pfizer is collaborating with German biotech company BioNTech to focus on a technology called an mRNA vaccine. Unlike conventional vaccines, which are produced using weakened forms of the virus, RNA vaccines can be constructed quickly using only the pathogen’s genetic code.