Pfiz­er’s cel­e­brat­ed Covid-19 vac­cine freezes many peo­ple out — but a ri­val mR­NA team says they thawed out a so­lu­tion

Once the eu­pho­ria be­gan to wane a bit fol­low­ing Pfiz­er’s dra­mat­ic un­veil­ing of a 90%-plus ef­fec­tive­ness rate from its piv­otal Covid-19 vac­cine study ear­li­er this week, less af­flu­ent coun­tries and re­gions around the world be­gan to won­der if they would ever be able to get in line for it.

The vac­cine has to be shipped in -70 de­grees cel­sius temps and then used with­in 5 days of be­ing thawed. For dis­trib­u­tors in Chi­na, that means build­ing a unique dis­tri­b­u­tion sys­tem to de­liv­er the first dose and then a boost­er. And there are plen­ty of coun­tries that say they can’t af­ford to go that route — adding a big ob­sta­cle in front of a huge lo­gis­ti­cal chal­lenge.

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