From Navajo Nation to New Orleans, challenges arise in vaccine roll out

FILE PHOTO: ICU doctor Gary Hunninghake receives the Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus disease (COVID-19) vaccine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., December 16, 2020. REUTERS/Brian Snyder/File Photo

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - From the wide-open spaces of a U.S. tribal nation to urban hospital emergency rooms, doctors, nurses and delivery people are wrestling with challenges in the roll-out of Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine - including delays, anxiety and keeping the drug at just the right level of cold.

U.S. Public Health Service Lieutenant Commander Erica Harker on Monday delivered a red, portable cooler with 165 doses of the vaccine to a hospital in tiny Ganado, Arizona, one of three drop-offs on a roughly 200-mile (322 km) round trip through the Navajo Nation, accompanied by tribal police.