TORONTO — When Canadian ice cream company Chapman’s first heard of the need for sub-zero freezers for the COVID-19 vaccine, they saw an opportunity to step up and help.
The Markdale, Ont.-based company has secured two medical-grade deep freezers capable of dropping to -80 C to store the Pfizer-BioNtech vaccines. The freezers will be used to store vaccines in Ontario’s Grey-Bruce County, where the company currently operates.
“We made the decision at that point, you know what, let’s put in an order and get a couple of these and make sure our health unit has them to use whenever we have the vaccine,” Ashley Chapman, vice-president of Chapman’s Ice Cream, told CTV News Channel on Saturday.
Currently there are 14 locations across Canada, inducing hospitals and universities, distributing Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines to priority groups. Ontario recently released a list of 17 additional hospital sites that will receive doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine over the next two weeks.
However, Grey-Bruce County is not on that list.
“That’s the problem,” Chapman said. “These 14 places are mostly in hot spots and city centres.”
Chapman’s Ice Cream will help store the vaccines once the region receive its first doses.
The company has long been prepared to lend a hand. According to Chapman, his parents pledged to assist the government with vaccine distribution plans decades ago in the event of a public heath emergency.
“My parents got approached decades ago because we had cold storage facilities and if there was some sort of public health crisis, whether a pandemic or some other catastrophe, we’ve been volunteering for a long time to offer up the services of our freezers,” said Chapman.
The Pfizer vaccine must be stored at temperatures below -70 C. Not only has this complicated shipping, it’s also made distribution logistics more difficult.
Chapman expects the freezers should be capable of holding 50,000 doses each at any given time.
The ice cream company is one of several Canadian companies to step up and assist with the federal pandemic response. A P.E.I tuna processing company called One Tuna has loaned two deep freezers to the provincial government to help store vaccines.
In Quebec, health professionals from chiropractors to veterinarians have offered to assist the province in administering COVID-19 and flu vaccines. Medical students will also be able to volunteer to administer vaccines, so long as their credentials fall in line with the Quebec Immunization Program’s requirements.
Other companies from breweries to fashion designers have stepped up to manufacture masks, hand sanitizer and PPE to support frontline workers and the public at large.
