Refrigeration Demand Increases as Delta Variant Surges
At the onset of the pandemic, it became apparent early on that maintaining a cold chain was critical. Manufacturers and distributors pledged to keep the food supply chain as an essential sector. Later, the emphasis shifted to determining how the cold chain might be utilized to effectively distribute a temperature-sensitive COVID-19 vaccination to billions of people worldwide once a feasible alternative became available.
By September last year, months of demand had put the United States’ cold storage refrigeration system to the test, with antiquated facilities under pressure and little time to construct many new ones. However, the difficulty provided a chance for businesses to innovate and invest in new distribution methods, boosting the cold chain refrigeration market further. Now, as countries prepare to combat the virus, strict cold storage requirements for COVID-19 vaccinations have sparked worldwide demand for specialized freezers.
Much of the attention has been focused on the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. It requires complicated and ultra-cold storage refrigeration conditions of at least minus 70 degrees Celsius for long-term storage, which may impede its delivery to regions without adequate infrastructure. This has compelled nations to strengthen their cold storage facilities and delivery operations in anticipation of the vaccine’s possible roll-out in the coming months.
Other vaccine candidates, such as the one developed by the US company Moderna – which has been shown to be 94.5 percent effective in clinical testing – will be simpler to implement in hot temperatures and resource-scarce situations. Moderna’s candidate vaccine can be stored at minus 20 degrees Celsius, similar to home freezers. Other vaccines developed by Johnson & Johnson in the United States, AstraZeneca in collaboration with Oxford University, and Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline in the United Kingdom are expected to be stored and shipped in an unfrozen state.
Much has been written about the cold-chain refrigeration infrastructure that will be needed to store and deliver the COVID-19 vaccinations. However, demand for cold-chain refrigeration capacity was actually increasing before the pandemic, and the pharmaceuticals sector accounted for a rising, although a still modest, portion of the cold-chain demand.
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