Power outage leaves health officials struggling to administer 8,400 doses of the coronavirus vaccine

HOUSTON – A power outage on Monday at a Harris County public health facility left authorities struggling to administer 8,400 doses of the coronavirus vaccine that were being stored there.

The authorities said that all doses that were defrosting should be administered by 5 pm or could not be used. This prompted authorities to start calling for places in the area that would be able to quickly administer doses before they got worse.

One such site was Rice University, which received about 1,000 doses to administer to staff and students on campus.

“We talked to the students in the queue and when they heard about it, they ran over here to get in line,” reported Jacob Rascon of KPRC 2 during his live report at the university. “Hundreds and hundreds of people are in line.”

Rascon said there were at least 1,000 people in line when he arrived at the gym where they were administering doses on a first-come, first-served basis.

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In a statement, Houston Methodist officials said they received 1,000 doses of the Modern COVID-19 vaccine from the thawed vaccine batch. All of these doses were administered on Monday afternoon, officials said.

“We don’t waste a drop,” said Robert Schwartz, executive vice president of Houston Methodist Hospital. “It was great for our community to be able to quickly administer these much needed vaccines in the middle of the storm.”

Ben Taub Hospital officials also said they were administering the vaccines to staff and patients qualified to receive the vaccine. The public is not being vaccinated in the hospital.

LBJ Hospital and Harris County Jail also received doses of the vaccine to administer.