BOSTON (CBS) – More than 1,200 doses of the coronavirus vaccine have gone to waste in Massachusetts, the state told the WBZ-TV I-Team. As of Friday, 1,096 doses of Moderna and 176 doses of Pfizer have been reported as wasted, for a total of 1,272 doses.
That’s a 0.13% vaccine loss percentage for the 960,100 doses of the COVID vaccine that were sent to Massachusetts, according to the COVID-19 Response Command Center.
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The I-Team reported on Monday that extra doses of the vaccine had been missed.
Health professionals routinely find extra doses in Moderna vaccines, which should be used within six hours of opening the bottles. I-Team spoke with the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center supervisor, who said that some extra doses were missed when “there was no one on the waiting list that we could access at that time”.
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Massachusetts requires reporting of dropped doses.
Dr. Michael Grodin, a medical ethics specialist at the School of Public Health at Boston University, calls vaccine waste “unacceptable and not justified”.
“It is not rocket science. It is not about developing the vaccine – that was the real challenge, ”he said. “In the future, we need to do a better job. “
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The state said it had received nearly a million doses of the vaccine and has so far administered 70%.