More than 1,100 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine are DESTROYED in Florida after the worker accidentally turns off the refrigerator in a mobile vehicle where they were being stored
- Palm Beach healthcare professional accidentally turned off the power supply to a refrigerator where Pfizer vaccines were being stored
- The Pfizer vaccine must be kept refrigerated in order to preserve some of its components, otherwise it becomes useless
- The error meant that 232 vials of the vaccine – consisting of 1,160 doses – had to be destroyed
- Palm Beach County officials are now storing supplies in centralized refrigerators with a backup generator to prevent such an incident from happening again
- Authorities are struggling to administer the COVID-19 vaccine to the American population in a timely manner
- Only 6.9% of Americans received their first Pfizer or Moderna injection; only 1.4 percent of citizens are fully vaccinated
- It is worrying the news that highly contagious mutations of the virus from the United Kingdom, Brazil and South Africa have already been detected on North American soil
More than 1,100 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine were destroyed in Florida after a healthcare professional accidentally turned off a refrigerator that kept the vaccines fresh.
Palm Beach County Health District officials discovered the error last Friday morning, during a ‘quality assurance check’ before vaccines were administered.
Pfizer’s vaccine should be stored at -70 degrees Fahrenheit to preserve some of its components, but they can be transferred to a regular refrigerator five days before they are administered. If left for longer – or exposed to any higher temperature – they will degrade and become ineffective.
It is not clear how the worker managed to turn off the power to the refrigerator, which was located inside a mobile vehicle.
More than 1,100 doses of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine were destroyed in Florida after a worker accidentally turned off the power supply to a refrigerator that kept the vaccines fresh
Residents of an assisted living facility in Florida are photographed waiting for the Pfizer vaccine earlier this month
In a statement released on Friday, Palm Beach County officials emphasized that it was ‘a single, isolated incident caused by human error’ and insisted that ‘it had absolutely no impact on patient safety’.
In light of the incident, authorities have implemented ‘additional safeguards’ and will now ‘centralize all vaccine supplies in a safe place with backup of the power generator 24 hours a day, 7 days a week’.
The county says the damaged vaccines, which made up 232 bottles – or approximately 1,160 doses – were safely destroyed.
The error occurred at a time when Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla revealed on Friday that his company is trying to accelerate the development of future vaccines to less than 100 days, warning that there is a “great possibility” that current vaccines are not effective permanently.
Bourla said Pfizer intends to move from recognizing a disease threat to obtaining an authorized vaccine in less than 100 days – an even shorter deadline than the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed target of 300 days last year .
COVID-19 vaccines were developed at record speed, due to technological advances, massive funding and public willingness to participate in trials.
However, there have been widespread delays with the launch of the vaccine to the American public in general.
According to current data, only 6.9 percent of Americans received the first of two COVID vaccines from Pfizer or Moderna.
Only 1.4 percent of citizens received both doses and are now fully vaccinated.
The statistics are worrisome due to fears that new mutant variants of the coronavirus may be running wild undetected in the United States.
There are now more than 350 reported cases of ‘supercovideo’ in the United States of the three strains detected for the first time in Brazil, the United Kingdom and South Africa.
Mutations are said to be up to 70 percent more contagious and can be 30 percent more deadly.
The wide spread of these strains can overload the hospital system and cause a considerable increase in the number of deaths.
The United States has reported more than 25.9 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the country and more than 435,000 deaths in total.
On a single Friday, 165,339 new cases 3,503 new deaths were added to the count.
More than 101,000 Americans remain in the hospital on treatment for the virus.
