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Non-priority people are being vaccinated before the deadline, when pharmacies have extra thawed doses.
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In some cases, vaccine providers face the decision to discard extra doses when they expire or give them to random people.
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At other times, confusion over the amount of doses per bottle and rumors of oversupply have led to setbacks in the distribution of the vaccine.
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Across the country, some non-health workers are getting their COVID-19 vaccines earlier than expected because pharmacies have extra doses left over.
This does not mean that there is an oversupply of vaccines in general. However, Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines need to be stored in cold temperatures and used within hours after thawing, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
In some cases, pharmacies and hospitals are left with missed doses at the end of the day and are faced with the choice of throwing out the bottles or offering them to lower priority containers.
Although the Food and Drug Administration has given vaccine suppliers the green light to use any extra doses left in Pfizer and Moderna vials, the federal government has not specified what should be done when there are more thawed doses than eligible containers.
Some providers have solved the problem on their own to ensure that no doses of the vaccine go unused. They offered the leftovers to local rescuers, pharmacy workers and an ordinary person who happened to be in the right place at the right time.
A couple in Kentucky heard about extra shots from a friend and ‘went well’
News of extra doses of vaccine in Louisville, Kentucky Walgreens, reached the Mastersons by word of mouth on Christmas Eve.
“[A friend] called us and we ran. It was pure luck, “Andrew Masterson, co-owner of local Captain’s Quarters restaurant, told the Louisville Courier-Journal. He added that he and his wife, who is undergoing stage 4 cancer chemotherapy, each received a dose of the Pfizer vaccine at Walgreens. in that day.
The drugstore chain was contracted to supply vaccines for long-term care facilities in Kentucky and on December 24, “the number of vaccine doses requested by the facilities exceeded the actual need,” said Walgreens spokesman Phil Caruso, to the Courier-Journal.
Caruso told the agency that this situation was an isolated occurrence, but Governor Andy Beshear confirmed that a similar incident occurred at a Walgreens in Lexington, Kentucky, the week before.
“The reaction was not what it should have been,” Beshear told the Courier-Journal, referring to the two incidents. “Now, I believe it came from a good place – yes, because they didn’t want anything to be wasted, but it should have been done differently – yes.”
In DC, a law student got lucky at the supermarket
Law student David MacMillan was buying groceries at Giant Food in Washington, DC, when a pharmacist asked him and his friend if they would like the Modern vaccine.
Not all health professionals who were supposed to receive the dose that day showed up, wrote a Giant representative in a statement supporting the pharmacist’s actions.
The pair quickly accepted the offer. MacMillan posted a video on TikTok detailing his experience on Friday.
“She turned to us and said, ‘Hey, I have two shots of the vaccine and I’m going to have to throw them out if I don’t give it to someone. We close in 10 minutes. do you want the modern vaccine? “he said in the video.
MacMillan told NBC Washington that he posted the video to address any misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 vaccine.
“It is important that, when there is so much misinformation going around, people can see that this is a good thing, this is a positive thing. We must be excited to be able to deal with the pandemic, ”said MacMillan to the vehicle.
In other cases, confusion over doses has led to poor distribution of vaccines
Not all cases of people receiving extra doses were happy accidents.
Hundreds of seniors in Tennessee were prevented from getting the COVID-19 vaccine on New Year’s Eve, only to have health officials call their family and friends to get the vaccines later that day.
The Hamilton County Health Department tweeted saying to people “please leave the queue NOW and come back at another time” just over an hour after the vaccination started, because the queue was so long that it reached the highway, he reported the affiliate of NBC WRCB-TV.
Later that day, officials said they realized that there were more defrosted vials that needed to be used, which prompted them to offer injections to non-priority containers.
At Stanford Hospital last week, some non-clinical affiliates were vaccinated during a hospital stay because they were under the impression that there were extra doses. Stanford released a statement saying there was not really an oversupply of vaccines.
Finally, a woman who said she works for Disney wrote in a Facebook post (which has since been withdrawn) that she received a vaccine from Redlands Community Hospital in Southern California, with the help of family connections. In this case, doses remained after vaccination by frontline health workers, but extra injections should go to lower priority health workers.
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