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The first of many freezer-packed COVID-19 vaccine vials made their way to distribution sites across the United States on Sunday, as the nation’s pandemic deaths approached the horrifying new milestone of 300,000. The rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, the first to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, ushers in the biggest vaccination effort in U.S. history — one that health officials hope the American public will embrace, even as some have voiced initial skepticism or worry. Shots are expected to be given to health care workers and nursing home residents beginning Monday. (Irvine and Gash, 12/14)

Trucks filled with Covid-19 vaccine vials pulled out of Pfizer Inc.’s Kalamazoo, Mich., production plant on Sunday morning, part of one of the largest mass mobilizations since the country’s factories were repurposed to help fight World War II. The effort to vaccinate the nation relies on chemists, factory workers, truck drivers, pilots, data scientists, bureaucrats, pharmacists and health-care workers. It requires ultracold freezers, dry ice, needles, masks and swabs converging simultaneously at thousands of locations across the country. (Krouse, Hopkins and Wilde Mathews, 12/13)

“Today, we’re not hauling freight, we’re delivering hope,” said Andrew Boyle, co-president of Boyle Transportation, which was hired by UPS to help ferry vaccine from the factory to a waiting plane in Lansing. The precious cargo was escorted to airports by body-armor-clad security officers. (Baertlein, 12/13)

Additionally, the governors of California, Washington, Oregon and Nevada announced Sunday that an independent review of the Pfizer vaccine found it was safe for public use. They said the vaccine was on the way but did not give a specific estimate for when the first shots would be given. (Firozi, Kornfield and Dawsey, 12/13)

The distribution plan contradicts promises made by President Trump, who in a video released shortly after the FDA authorization, claimed that shipments of the vaccine had already begun and that the vaccine would be administered “in less than 24 hours.” [General Gus] Perna insisted that the distribution efforts, like packing vaccines, began almost immediately after the FDA authorized the vaccine for use in individuals age 16 or older on Friday. The vaccine will begin shipping from Pfizer’s manufacturing facility to UPS and Fedex within 24 hours, Perna added. (Florko, 12/12)

The first wave of shipments is going to health care workers and nursing home residents. Officials say vaccines should be available to everyone by the middle of next year. Trucks with Pfizer’s vaccine rolled out Sunday. They will deliver to 145 distribution centers around the country by Monday, said Army Gen. Gustave Perna of Operation Warp Speed, the government effort to develop and distribute COVID-19 vaccines. An additional 425 sites will get shipments Tuesday, and the remaining 66 on Wednesday. (Choi, 12/12)

This week’s deliveries of the valuable new Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine will be an exercise of intricate logistics, with each step of the perilous journey watched by high-tech tools to ensure safety and security. Handling should be so smooth that the vaccine itself would barely notice it is being moved. “Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, every shipment is monitored,” said Scott Hurley of Roambee, a Santa Clara-based company whose sensors, cloud data analytics, and automation specialize in high-value shipment tracking, including a COVID-19 vaccine it declines to name. (Krieger, 12/13)