16
www.uslaw.org USLA W
Vaccine Voyages Lessons from the Transportation Industry’s
Handling of the COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Brendan T. Vandor and Rodney L. Umberger, Jr.
Last year, amid the haze of confusion and instability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, industry experts, policymakers and stakeholders at every level of the supply chain did know one thing for certain: distributing a vaccine to the U.S. population was going to require a logistical effort that would be unprecedented in terms of its scale, magnitude and urgency. The rollout of the first vaccine doses began with fits and starts: Pfizer, for example, was forced to slash the number of vaccines it expected to produce before 2021 by 50% due to supply chain challenges. Now, however, more than six months after the distribution of the first doses of the vaccine, Operation Warp Speed has seen clear successes, and the Biden Administration has easily surpassed his original goal of administering 100 million doses of the vaccine within his first 100 days in office (having achieved the mark on Day 58). This article will briefly examine what lessons the transportation industry—even the parts of it not directly involved in the distribution of the vaccine—can learn from the initial vaccine rollout, and what steps American business, government, and consumers can take to implement some of those lessons as the rollout continues. EXISTING STRUCTURE During a typical year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention distributes about 75 million vaccine doses to health departments and private providers around the country, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Recent pandemics also helped shape the nationwide vaccination distribution infrastructure. During the 2009-10 H1N1 pandemic, for example, the U.S. government distributed 124 million does of the H1N1 vaccine. Currently, however, the U.S. is attempting to distribute some 510 million doses of the COVID-19 vaccine to its adult popula-
Williams Kastner
tion. The all-encompassing project is easily the largest-scale vaccination distribution effort in this country’s history and has required a relaxation of government regulation of the transportation industry. Notable examples include loosening borders and customs controls; allowing companies involved in the distribution of the vaccine to
rely on waivers of certain FMCSA regulations, such as the hours-of-service requirement for drivers; and the FAA’s decision to permit larger quantities of dry ice to be transported by air (since cold temperature control is perhaps the most important requirement of vaccine distribution). CHALLENGES Not surprisingly, the massive COVID19 vaccine rollout has placed strains on every level of the supply chain economy,
and especially on participants in the national transportation network who are not directly involved in the rollout. General freight forwarders continue to be worried that their cargo will not be a priority and may be delayed in favor of transporting vaccines, which in turn could force them to raise rates and potentially lose existing or potential customers who would no longer be able to afford to ship with them. Competitors of the large delivery services companies—Pfizer is partnering primarily with DHL, FedEx, and UPS to distribute its vaccines—as well as companies in business with those competitors, are finding themselves adversely affected by the rollout effort (though additional vaccines are expected to be approved over the next few months, which could result in increased competition for vaccine distribution services). Time will tell if the singular focus of DHL, FedEx, and UPS on vaccine distribution (FedEx Express executive Richard Smith was quoted as saying, “There will be no higher priority shipments in our network than these vaccine shipments; they will be the highest priority”1) will impact the ability of those companies to continue providing all of the services they did pre-vaccine rollout. Opportunities also exist for smaller businesses and subcontractors to participate in the rollout. Boyle Transportation and XPO Logistics have both played central roles in transporting the vaccines to airports and other transfer locations. Other transportation companies, however, may not have the large volume capacity to participate in the vaccine rollout and/or do not have the resources to ensure that their company can pass the strict vetting, regulatory, training and certification requirements to be able to serve as potential partners in the vaccine distribution effort. LESSONS AND AREAS FOR GROWTH Directly entering the COVID-19 vac-
