An official at the Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center in Colorado checks the temperature monitor on a shipment of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine.
Michael Ciaglo/Getty Images
A last-minute snafu this fall threatened to disrupt the smooth rollout of the first Covid-19 vaccine approved in the United States, according to industry officials.
At issue was how to monitor the temperature of the ultra-cold storage containers being used to distribute vials of the vaccine developed by Pfizer and its partner BioNTech. Pfizer, the officials told STAT, planned to disconnect temperature-monitoring sensors on the containers once they were delivered to health care providers though many of the providers needed to use the boxes to store the vials for up to 30 days. Without the monitoring systems, providers would have no way of knowing if the vials had thawed prematurely, rendering the vaccine unusable.