The Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine requires a gigantic new network of freezers

By Adam Vaughan

A biologist takes a coronavirus DNA sample from the freezer of the Minas Gerais Federal University’s Technological Vaccine Center in Belo Horizonte, Brazil.

Pedro Vilela / Getty Images

We have a Covid-19 vaccine that works. But can we keep it cold enough to bring enough people? Pfizer and BioNTech’s long list of risks and uncertainties for its BNT162b2 vaccine, which this week was reported to be 90 percent effective, includes the challenge of its “ultra-low-temperature formulation” and the way how it is stored and distributed – called “cold chain”.

Between production and dosage …