COVID vaccine breakthrough raises hopes, poses logistical headache

Monday’s potential breakthrough in the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine has left governments scrambling to meet the logistical challenge of distributing hundreds of millions of doses once it becomes available in coming months. Interim trial data showed the experimental vaccine developed by Pfizer Inc and Germany’s BioNTech was 90% effective, spurring hopes of an end to a pandemic that has cost more than a million lives and crashed the world’s major economies. With the two groups expecting to produce some 50 million doses by the end of the year and 1.3 billion doses next year, assuming regulatory approval, German Health Minister Jens Spahn, said the vaccine was a “light at the end of the tunnel”.