When Covid-19 vaccines are about to expire, health workers must scramble to ensure they are used

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In the worst case, valuable doses have been wasted or thrown away. However, quick thinking from practitioners, coupled with a bit of luck, led them to administer vaccines under unique circumstances.

On Thursday night, after a freezer with vaccine doses malfunctioned in Seattle, a nearby hospital had less than nine hours to administer more than 800 vaccines before they spoiled. Vaccines from Pfizer-BioTech and Moderna require certain low temperatures for storage and have a limited shelf life when exposed to room temperature.

Swedish Health Services told CNN they quickly enrolled eligible beneficiaries on short notice via social media. Clinical and non-clinical hospital volunteers came together to manage the site.

“No vaccine was wasted last night,” spokesman Tiffany Moss told CNN on Friday.

Swedish wasn’t the only place to attend that night. An additional supply from the broken freezer made its way to the University of Washington, where staff and volunteers administered vaccines at two of its centers, according to CNN affiliate KOMO.

Smart solutions and swift action by health workers across the country, faced with the total loss of a vaccine supply, have benefited those in the right place at the right time.

Only while stocks last

On January 4, similar to Thursday’s recovery in Seattle, a California hospital discovered that its freezer storing Moderna vaccines was broken.

Officials at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Medical Center in Mendocino County told CNN that they realized after a safety inspection that they had about two hours to administer more than 800 doses.

“Our main focus was to make sure we got every vaccine in every arm,” Adventist Health executive Judson Howe told CNN. “We contacted the county public health official and briefed him on the situation and through a collaborative approach we were able to administer all 830 vaccines within two hours.

“The reality is that we were faced with a difficult situation and we were not going to let a vaccine go to waste,” Howe said.

After a freezer full of Covid-19 vaccines broke, a California hospital rushed to administer more than 800 doses in about 2 hours.

About 200 doses went to the county for administration, 70 went to skilled nursing facilities and the rest went to four clinics, prioritized according to state guidelines, said doctor Dr Bessant Parker.

“Since this was an emergency, we focused on as many people as we could quickly mobilize within the stands, and then the rest were for the general public on a first come, first served basis.” Parker said.

In Oregon, employees of the Josephine County Public Health Department were returning from a mass vaccination clinic on Tuesday when members of the group were stranded in their cars in a snowstorm.

The group had six remaining doses of the vaccine, according to the health department. To prevent these doses from going unused before they expired, workers went from car to car to offer people the chance to get the vaccine.

Workers found six takers, including a sheriff’s office worker who intended to be at the mass vaccination event earlier but got stuck in the snow, according to the health department . A nearby ambulance monitored in case recipients have had an adverse reaction.

Wasted opportunities

Other situations on the ground have not had the same success.

On January 22, nearly 2,000 doses of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine stored in a freezer at a Boston hospital were compromised after a cleaning contractor accidentally loosened the freezer cap. The installed alarm system did not function as expected.

In Ohio, the Department of Health announced on Jan.20 that it was halting allocations to a Columbus vaccine supplier after nearly 900 doses were wasted due to improper transportation. An investigation has been launched over concerns that refrigeration temperatures were not being adequately monitored.

A shipment of 4,400 doses to Maine on Jan. 18 was initially found to be outside the appropriate temperature range, according to the state’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention. An ongoing investigation by the vaccine distributor later determined that the doses could still be usable because they could have been stored too cold rather than too hot.

Another reported failure may have been intentional. In December, a Wisconsin pharmacist was fired and then arrested for removing the vaccine vials from storage, rendering them unnecessary. Investigators believed the man had withdrawn the vaccine “knowing they would not be usable,” according to a statement.
Health workers stuck in snow administer coronavirus vaccine to stranded drivers
With the growing frustration of state governors and local officials over the vaccine rollout, some say the need to protect every dose remains imperative.
California Health and Human Services Secretary Mark Ghaly spoke earlier this month about the need to use every vaccine when oversupply is available, even for recipients who do not meet the needs. the highest.

“We just want to say that we shouldn’t waste vaccine,” Ghaly said. “We know that our providers and those in charge of immunization are very thoughtful and innovative people, that they have access to people who are in these high risk levels. And they should do whatever they can to make sure they’re giving the vaccine to those who have been found to be most at risk based on our priority groups, our faces and our tears. “

“But by all means, don’t waste the vaccine.”

Andy Rose, Alta Spells, Christina Maxouris, Stella Chan, Elizabeth Joseph, Dakin Andone, Sahar Akbarzai, Joe Sutton, Carma Hassan and Rebekah Riess contributed to this report.

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