UMC prepares ultra-cold freezers to hold virus vaccine shipments

EL PASO, Texas -- The freezers are in place to hold Covid-19 vaccines at University Medical Center.

Now, they just need their share of the vaccine, which is scheduled to arrive by Dec. 16.

Our ABC-7 cameras were permitted to get a close up look at one of the freezers. (Take a look in the video player at the top of this article.)

Each ultra-cold freezer can hold up to 90,000 vials of the vaccine; each vial contains five doses of the vaccine.

However, the initial delivery of the vaccine, which will be shipped directly by Pfizer to UMC, will be 2,900 doses.

Those doses will go to frontline health workers.

The reason for the ultra-cold freezers is the Pfizer vaccine must be held in temperatures around minus 75 degrees Celsius - or minus 115 degrees Fahrenheit.

Should the vaccine be outside the freezer for too long, it could become useless and might have to be destroyed.