[Nhcoll-l] COVID vaccine storage in biological collections facilities

[Michael Andersen]

Hi Andy,

I agree that we potentially have much to offer our state and local communities in the way of cold storage, and the potential goodwill and exposure is high. We were contacted about a month ago by folks at UNM Hospital. They are in charge of state-wide organization and were taking stock of ultracold resources within the UNM system. We offered to help, but they opted not to include us. I should say that in speaking with UNM Biosafety, we were told that should a freezer be used for vaccine storage, it would first need to be decommissioned of all material, decontaminated, and used only for vaccine storage for the duration of the vaccine program. There didn’t seem to be an option to share space within a freezer.

Mike

_______________________________________________________
Michael J. Andersen, Ph.D. (he, him, his)
Assistant Professor, Department of Biology
Curator of Genomic Resources & Associate Curator of Birds,
Museum of Southwestern Biology
University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131
phone: 505.277.8017
mjandersen at unm.edu<mailto:mjandersen at unm.edu>
http://www.andersenlabunm.org<http://www.andersenlabunm.org/>

On Dec 8, 2020, at 12:49 PM, Bentley, Andrew Charles <abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>> wrote:

  [EXTERNAL]
Hi all

I am interested in knowing if anyone has been contacted by federal, state or local authorities about the possibility of storing COVID vaccine in cryogenic facilities associated with biological collections.  It is apparent that cold storage capacity may become an issue for the Pfizer vaccine and maybe others and that the collections community may be in a position to assist in this regard for the good of the communities we reside in.  This may also be a great opportunity for us to also showcase the work that we do and the value of our collections to mitigating human health issues such as pandemics and the value of collections in general.

The Biodiversity Collections Network (BCoN) along with AIBS and NSCA are potentially interested in being proactive about contacting these agencies to offer our support but it would be interesting to know in advance if contact has been made and by whom.

Thanks

Andy

     A  :                A  :               A  :
 }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<)))_°>
     V                   V                  V
Andy Bentley
Ichthyology Collection Manager
University of Kansas
Biodiversity Institute
Dyche Hall
1345 Jayhawk Boulevard
Lawrence, KS, 66045-7561
USA

Tel: (785) 864-3863
Fax: (785) 864-5335
Email: abentley at ku.edu<mailto:abentley at ku.edu>
http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu<http://ichthyology.biodiversity.ku.edu/>

     A  :                A  :                A  :
 }<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<(((_°>.,.,.,.}<)))_°>
     V                   V                   V

_______________________________________________
Nhcoll-l mailing list
Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu<mailto:Nhcoll-l at mailman.yale.edu>
https://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/nhcoll-l

_______________________________________________
NHCOLL-L is brought to you by the Society for the Preservation of
Natural History Collections (SPNHC), an international society whose
mission is to improve the preservation, conservation and management of
natural history collections to ensure their continuing value to
society. See http://www.spnhc.org<http://www.spnhc.org/> for membership information.
Advertising on NH-COLL-L is inappropriate.

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.yale.edu/pipermail/nhcoll-l/attachments/20201208/916d6d6b/attachment.html>