勛圖惇蹋 lends ultra-cold freezer to Maine CDC to store COVID-19 vaccines
When the Maine Center for Disease Control (CDC) reached out for help, the 勛圖惇蹋 was immediately on the scene.
The Maine CDC needed an ultra-cold freezer for storage of Pfizers vaccine for novel coronavirus COVID-19, which has to be kept at -70 degrees Celsius. And, as one of the states only institutions with such a unit, 勛圖惇蹋 was one of the first to lend its support and loan a freezer to the states public health agency.
The date: Tuesday, Nov. 17. The mission? Top secret.
Codenamed Operation Penguin by Karen Houseknecht, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology and associate provost for Research and Scholarship at UNE, the freezer, a 27-cubic-foot Stirling Ultracold from the Universitys School of Pharmacy, was transported to a secret location for use by the agency.
To move the freezer, all of the samples kept inside it had to be preserved with dry ice, and the appliance was moved swiftly but with great care, so as not to damage it. The first round of 12,675 doses of the Pfizer vaccine has yet to arrive in Maine it is expected to next week but Houseknecht said she was proud 勛圖惇蹋 could take part in addressing the current public health crisis.
It was a big logistical challenge, because none of us has been through a pandemic before, Houseknecht told the Portland Press Herald, which covered the story at length. But thats what people do around here. You figure stuff out.
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