BOSTON (AP) – Nearly 2,000 doses of the COVID-19 vaccine were spoiled at a Veterans Affairs hospital in Boston after a contractor accidentally turned off a freezer, hospital officials announced on Thursday.
The Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center team found on Tuesday that a freezer had broken, compromising 1,900 doses of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine.
The freezer plug was loose after a contractor accidentally disconnected it during cleaning, according to a statement from Kyle Toto, a spokesman for the VA Boston Healthcare System. The freezer was in a safe place and had an alarm system, he said.
The system is investigating the cause of the incident and why the alarm monitoring system did not work. More doses are on the way, Toto said, and officials “do not foresee an interruption” of the system’s vaccination effort.
Temperature problems have caused problems for the launch of vaccines in other states.
Nearly 12,000 doses of Moderna that were being shipped to Michigan on Sunday were spoiled after getting too cold. In Wisconsin, a pharmacist faces charges after authorities say he deliberately blew hundreds of doses by taking them out of refrigeration for two nights.
The Modern vaccine needs to be stored at normal freezing temperatures, but not in the ultra-cold required for the injection of Pfizer-BioNTech.
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VIRUSES IN NUMBERS
The number of recently confirmed coronavirus deaths increased by 80 on Friday, while the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 increased by more than 4,900.
The new deaths have increased the number of confirmed COVID-19 deaths in the state to 13,702 and their number of confirmed cases since the pandemic began to almost 468,000.
The true number of cases is probably higher because studies suggest that some people may be infected and not feel bad.
There were more than 2,000 people reported hospitalized Friday because of confirmed cases of COVID-19, with about 420 in intensive care units.
The average age of hospitalized patients was 71 years. There were more than 89,000 estimated active cases of COVID-19 in the state.
The number of probable or confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported in long-term care institutions has increased to 7,857.