Coronavirus Vaccine Shipments Face 'Widespread Delays' Because Of Winter Storm
Washington Post, Feb. 16, 2021.
Hazardous conditions are slowing major distribution hubs in the Southeast and causing ripple effects for scheduling appointments and monitoring storage sites. The winter storm battering Texas and much of the U.S. has also dealt a blow to the coronavirus vaccination drive, delaying shipments because of poor road conditions and forcing the closure of hundreds of vaccination sites nationwide.
Hazardous weather is slowing deliveries out of a FedEx facility in Memphis and a UPS facility in Louisville that serve as distribution hubs for the Southeast. “Due to the severe winter weather currently impacting a large swath of the country, the U.S. government is projecting widespread delays in COVID-19 vaccine shipments and deliveries over the next few days,” Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, wrote in an email.
She did not detail which states and how many of the 11 million doses scheduled for delivery this week are affected.
But a slew of localities announced delays, including canceled vaccination events Tuesday in Alabama, Indiana, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Tennessee, the Chicago area and more. Missouri closed all large-scale vaccination sites through Friday. The grocery chain Publix stopped taking appointments for shots in Florida, South Carolina and Georgia, citing shipping delays. Texas said its weekly vaccine allotment wouldn’t begin to arrive until Wednesday.
“No one wants to put vaccine at risk by attempting to deliver it in dangerous conditions,” the Texas Department of State Health Services noted Tuesday in a graphic on Twitter. In some cases, residents who nabbed elusive vaccine appointments for themselves or their family members now find themselves back at the start of their search. Austin resident Shana Gallagher, 26, was scheduled to receive her first dose Monday in Waco, Tex., more than 100 miles from her home — the closest appointment she could find after long stretches clicking refresh online. But when she canceled her assigned slot because of the weather, she was forced to give up her second-dose appointment, too, she said...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/02/16/covid-vaccine-winter-storm
= new reply since forum marked as read
Snowing like crazy again. 
