Charles Fishman, writing at The Atlantic:
Dry ice often helps save Thanksgiving, even if the beneficiaries of its special magic may not notice. But this winter, it will help save the world from the coronavirus pandemic. A senior salesperson for Noble, which routinely supplies the pharmaceutical industry, had just taken a call from an official with the state of New York, assessing how much dry ice Noble might be able to supply, on short notice, in order to get the first coronavirus vaccine out to every corner of the state once it is approved.
That vaccine, the work of a partnership between Pfizer and BioNTech, is likely to be the first approved by the FDA. It is so delicate that it has to be kept at –70 degrees Celsius (–94 degrees Fahrenheit). That’s not just colder than most freezers; it’s colder than winter at the South Pole. But holding that temperature is not a problem for dry ice, which is a solid at –78 degrees Celsius (–109 degrees Fahrenheit). In fact, for shipping Pfizer’s coronavirus vaccine, nothing else is practical besides dry ice. “There’s really no other way to maintain that temperature stability in transit,” says Azra Behlim, a medical-supply-chain expert at Vizient, a health-care consultancy.
The nation’s dry-ice makers aim to be ready.