News Room

It’s always good for consumers to have options, right? And indeed, the United States should soon have three Covid-19 vaccines being injected into people’s arms, with more potentially on the way in the coming months, accelerating the race to vaccinate hundreds of millions of people as quickly as possible. But all vaccines are not equal, and increasingly, health authorities and providers will be dealing with shots with varying attributes: different storage requirements, efficacy, dosing regimens, and manufacturing platforms. That, plus the possibility of a pickier public who may want a certain shot over another, could complicate an already-messy rollout. But the different features also open the door to greater access beyond just more supply — a more convenient one-shot vaccine will likely soon be available.

Supply Chain Resiliency in the Face of COVID-19, a short video interview with MIT Doctor David Simchi-Levi.  Healthcare Packaging's Karen Sookne spoke to Simchi-Levi last November at Pack Expo Connects.

A spat between the European Union and the British-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is threatening to hamper global vaccine efforts, and is raising tensions on the continent as European countries struggle to vaccinate their populations amid the threat of new, more virulent strains of the coronavirus. The EU purchased 400 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, which the company made in partnership with Oxford University, in advance of it being approved by EU regulators. But last week, AstraZeneca abruptly announced that due to production issues it would only be able to deliver about 31 million doses to the EU, or about 40 percent of the roughly 80 million doses promised in the first quarter. That, of course, angered EU leaders, who are desperately trying to inoculate their populations.

A year into the coronavirus pandemic, Americans are painfully aware that overcoming the scourge is a marathon, not a sprint. Enter Dave McGillivray, who knows a thing or two about endurance events — and logistics. The race director of the Boston Marathon, which is on hold until fall, has been tapped by the state of Massachusetts to run mass vaccination operations at Gillette Stadium and Fenway Park. Idled at his day job by the pandemic, he’s part of an emerging group of event organizers and other unconventional logistics experts who are using their skills to help the nation vaccinate as many people against COVID-19 as possible.

The TSA announced that the rate of firearm detection at airport security checkpoints doubled from 2019 to 2020. At the same time, the number of passengers screened dropped by 500 million. Does this mean that air travelers were safer in 2020, or were there more firearms being carried onto airplanes? The clue to resolve this quandary lies in airport security environments with covid-19 and the profile of passengers who are now flying. In December 2020, the TSA screened over 60% fewer passengers than were screened in December 2019. Airport passenger screening is an intense process of managing the flow of people and items using security technology to detect threats, effectively looking for needles in haystacks.