Coronavirus: The supply chain to save the world is unprepared for a vaccine

LONDON - The industries that shepherd goods around the world on ships, planes and trucks acknowledge they aren't ready to handle the epic challenges of shipping an eventual Covid-19 vaccine from drugmakers to billions of people.

"Let's all be honest here, vaccine supply chains are exponentially more complex than PPE supply chain," he said, referring to personal protective equipment like surgical masks and gloves."You can't ruin PPE by leaving it on the tarmac for a couple of days. You will destroy vaccines." Among the big questions involving fairness and accessibility: Exactly how will medicine requiring such delicate and expensive transportation reach remote, impoverished areas where drones are now used to distribute pharmaceuticals?

Ultimately, countries will need far broader access to Covid-19 shots to halt the virus that has devastated economies and so far taken more than 633,000 lives globally. But by all accounts that's not likely to occur until well into 2021 at the earliest. Throughout nearly six months of the crisis, the closing and reopening of economies has thrown out of sync the usual seasonal flow of goods from China and other large manufacturing hubs, rendering forecasts useless for shipping plans. Making the future even harder to predict is the wide time range health experts are discussing for the arrival of an antidote to the coronavirus.

"Systemic health threats are the least promising subjects for global cooperation," said Simon Evenett, a professor at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland who tracks trade barriers.

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