I was talking to Cascade Friday and one of their staff members mentioned there could be restrictions on the amounts of dry ice available for purchase after a Coronavirus vaccine is released. She mentioned they would be using dry ice to ship the vaccine.
Has anyone heard any similar rumors?
One of the two major vaccine candidates must ship at -70degC meaning yes there will be a new huge player in dry ice consumption. However this isn’t new as a ton of biologics are shipped on dry ice. The other vaccine candidate must ship at -20degC.
So there’s a few moving parts in the equation. Whose vaccine will be more popular? Will there just be a small shortage on the first shipment or will it continue to eat the supply? Can a pharma giant bring a dry ice plant into their existing infrastructure, or will they, and if so would it help at all or not even put a dent in their consumption?
From NPR:
"Yeah. Well, it depends on which vaccine we’re talking about. The two vaccines that are the furthest along in clinical trials both have to be kept cold but to different degrees. So one is made by the drug company Pfizer, and that requires the coldest storage. It needs to be kept at minus 70 degrees Celsius, which is close to the temperature of dry ice. And Pfizer has spent some $2 billion building their own global supply chain. So here in the U.S., they have an assembly center in Kalamazoo, Mich., where they’ll be packing vaccine vials into dry ice pods. And these pods will be loaded into boxes that can keep these ultra-cold temperatures for up to 10 days. And they’ll be moved around the country in cargo planes and trucks by carriers like UPS and FedEx.
Now, the Moderna vaccine requires storage at minus 20 degrees Celsius, which is comparable more to a home freezer. And that one would get distributed by the government, at least at first. So Moderna will get the vaccines to a government site. And from there, the government will work with a private contractor to get the vaccines out to locations like hospitals, pharmacies, clinics, wherever they’re requested by states."
https://www.stirlingultracold.com/ maybe these guys will see an uptick in biz. I have one of their older model portable units, goes to -80C and require very minimal power - this unit was designed to ship bio samples across countries where dry ice wouldnt last or isnt readily available. Best auction score ive ever came across. new ones sure as hell aint cheap tho.
Which is the one that just had the big news story about being shown to be 90% effective.
Pfizer… It needs to be stored the coldest.
my 101 year old grandma got asymptomatic covid. Shes fine 11 weeks later. How do thy determine effectiveness of a vaccine when the disease doesnt get people sick?
They’re going to give the vaccine to the old people first, then if it doesn’t kill them, the rest of us get to have it. Seems legit.
I heard it’s based on this https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-decide-who-should-get-a-covid-19-vaccine-first/
“Fair Priority Model”
Nope they give it to drs and nurses first so when they all die we are all fucked. Last I heard is that healthcare workers are highly covid resistand and get less covid than gen pop even if they deal with covid patients directly. Likely t cells.
USA is the one making the vaccine in advance of approval. That will be bullshit if we are supposed to give it away to other countries before people who want it get it here. I wont take a vaccine.
Well then you’ll hate this Zerohedge
Do I smell conspiracy… other countries are supposed to be our Guinea Pigs to see how they work before we get them here…
Suppliers in my area have no ice in mid michigan. Bout to have to go pay $2 a pound at meijer. Paxair welding said their supply might not come in for awhile cause of the vaccine
meijer gets it from a local source, no local source will mean meijer is out. I got DI today and he said the industry is overwhelmed already. And vaccine hasnt shippped yet and you cant store dry ice. Why is it being bought if you cant store it? He sounded pissed that hes going to have to do more work.
Im gonna hurry and get all my runs done before I cant get it.
Call Kalamazoo dry ice. Bret can probably help you out
Oxarc in wa is still fully stocked.
No problems we weren’t already having in socal.
thats the weird thing is its an on demand product, It sublimates even in a-86 freezer. What has to happen is ramping up supply. Anyone know of a good dry ice stock?
Try usalab.com. my old di place was in warren, on 8 mile. They used it to clean food service places.