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The state has wasted more than 1,200 doses of the coronavirus vaccine, a fraction of the nearly one million doses that have been shipped to Massachusetts so far, according to public health officials.
“As of 2/5: A total of 1,096 doses of Moderna and 176 doses of Pfizer have been reported as wasted, or 1,272 doses in total,” said Ann Scales, spokesperson for the State Department of Public Health , in an email. “Of the 960,100 doses shipped to date, this represents a vaccine wastage percentage of 0.13%.”
The wasted doses were previously reported by the Boston Herald.
The figure provided by DPH does not include the nearly 2,000 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine that were spoiled last month at Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center when a cleaning contractor accidentally loosened an electrical outlet on a freezer.
State DPH does not track doses that the federal government provides directly to the VA.
The DPH said on Tuesday that a total of 696,051 first doses of the coronavirus vaccine had been administered in Massachusetts, along with 214,361 second doses.
The total of 910,412 doses administered equals 70.9 percent of the 1,283,700 doses shipped to providers in the state so far, the department said in a new daily immunization report.
Massachusetts is in the middle of a campaign to immunize millions of people in a bid to end a pandemic that has sickened hundreds of thousands of people and caused nearly 15,000 deaths in the state. The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines, the only vaccines authorized to date, are both two-dose vaccines.
The state’s second push appears to be abating. Cases, hospitalizations and other parameters have gone down. But public officials are concerned about a possible return of the virus due to new variants of the coronavirus, and they are asking people to continue to take precautions and get vaccinated when it is their turn.
Material from previous Globe stories has been used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on twitter @TAGlobe.
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