Coronavirus News: New York prepares for first shipments of Pfizer's COVID vaccine
Coronavirus Update for New York
NEW YORK (WABC) -- The first shipments of Pfizer's coronavirus vaccine could arrive Monday in New York.
The state is expecting 170,000 doses next week and 346,000 doses of Moderna's drug - if and when that is approved.
At Northwell Health's Staten Island University hospital, workers are preparing to vaccinate people as soon as they receive the drug.
After FDA authorization it is now a matter of a days and hours before the vaccine starts arriving at FedEx facilities and then being shipped throughout New York and the Tri-State area.
MORE NEWS | NYPD releases video of FedEx driver shot in back while making delivery in Brooklyn
In Hunt's Point section of the Bronx, one FedEx location is awaiting shipments.
The vaccines will be arriving from Chicago on United Airlines. There will be several hundred thousand doses coming to New York to healthcare workers and the most vulnerable populations.
The process to ship them is very involved. FedEx has refrigerators, freezers and ultra-cold freezers at cold chain facilities around the world. The ultra-cold freezers are capable of maintaining extreme frozen temperatures for vaccines. They are hoping freezers aren't necessary since they are working to move the vaccines rapidly from point of origin to final destination.
The news comes as Gov. Andrew Cuomo has shutdown indoor dining in the city beginning Monday. He expects a rise in cases in January, but is hoping that will decrease by the end of February or March when vaccines become more widely available to the general public.
COVID NYC Update: Indoor dining to shut down again in NYC Monday
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