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A freezer accident prompted a frantic effort to administer more than 1,600 vaccines overnight in Seattle, the Washington Post reported.
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Hundreds of people stood on the streets in bathrobes and pajamas after Swedish health services in Seattle tweeted at 11 p.m. that they had vaccines that were about to expire within hours.
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The workers gave all the injections on time and no dose was wasted.
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Staff and volunteers at a Seattle healthcare facility rushed to inject 1,600 people with rapidly expiring coronavirus vaccines after a freezer crashed, The Washington Post reported.
The freezer malfunction meant Moderna vaccines would expire on the morning of January 29, so Swedish health workers in Seattle rushed to vaccinate as many people as possible. In the last 15 minutes, before the shooting expired, workers administered dozens of shootings mostly in the street. They reportedly injected the last shot at 3:45 a.m.
Around 11 p.m. Thursday evening, the medical center tweeted an urgent message saying he had hundreds of vaccine appointments available in the next few hours before the doses expired. Hundreds of people turned up in pajamas and dresses, NBC affiliate KING-TV reported.
Those in line were calling people they knew to drop them off to get a photo, the Post added.
“We were literally like… who can bring people here? People started texting and calling and we were just counting down, ”Kevin Brooks, Swedish health services operations manager told The Post. Thirty-seven Thirty five. Thirty three … People were going up and running down the hall. “
Brooks told KING-TV that all available appointments are filled in 35 to 40 minutes.
The vaccines, which were in storage at Kaiser Permanente, began to thaw after a refrigeration issue plagued Swedish vaccines and those owned by UW Medicine, the Post reported.
Jenny Brackett, assistant administrator at UW Medicine, said that upon hearing of the freezer accident she was inspired by another recent case where vaccines were almost wasted. Earlier this week, after getting stuck in a snowstorm, health workers in Oregon vaccinated stranded drivers before their remaining coronavirus vaccine doses expired.
While these vaccines were meant to go to other people, “the snow meant these doses would not reach them until they expired,” the Josephine County, Oregon, Department of Public Health said.
Brackett told the Post: “When I got the call they said, ‘It’s kind of like our snowy moment.'”
Read more: Coronavirus variants threaten to disrupt the progress of the pandemic. Here’s how the top 4 vaccine makers are fighting back.
Brackett said she goes through the long line looking for people aged 65 or older so they can be prioritized.
“I was a little worried that the line might not be too excited,” she said. “You know, that I let the others start. But that is not the answer at all I got. In fact, the crowd cheered..“
While not all those vaccinated fall into the state’s top priority category, the center said they would still be eligible to receive their second dose, and they are just happy that nothing is wasted.
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