A broken freezer containing more than 1,600 doses of COVID-19 vaccine may have proved catastrophic. Instead, quick thinking and bold action turned a disaster into a miracle in Seattle. When it became clear that Moderna’s doses would expire quickly, two clinics split the doses and sent out the dawn call, so to speak.
In the end, all doses were used, and more than 1,600 lucky Seattle residents stayed ahead of the vaccination curve:
Hundreds of people rushed to the clinics at the University of Seattle and the University of Washington on Thursday night to try to get a COVID-19 vaccine before the doses expired.
Spokesmen from Sweden and UW said a freezer that stored Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine broke at Kaiser Permanente, leaving 1,650 doses of the vaccine at risk of expiration.
Swedish and UW split the doses and started to administer them.
“The teams worked vigilantly and in close partnership at night and early in the morning to ensure that all doses were used and no vaccinations missed,” said a Kaiser Permanente Washington representative.
Given the highly regulated environment in which this effort has taken place, this quick thinking and agile action is even more impressive. We have heard stories of doses that have gone wrong, accidentally or under more suspicious circumstances, and we should expect at least the first type of hiccup to occasionally occur. Normally, regulations and penalties for violating them may have thrown the doses in the trash, as this early stage of vaccination does not exactly reward innovative thinking.
For example, as more than one person pointed out on Twitter, Andrew Cuomo’s draconian penalties for vaccinating outside his strict regime would never have produced this kind of extemporaneous workaround. Hundreds of people would never have received these doses. Instead, with room for innovation and creative thinking, Seattle healthcare professionals have turned failure into a huge success, all between 11:00 pm and 2:30 am.
The men and women who have taken these steps to protect their community and get the most out of every dose of these endangered doses deserve praise. Let’s hope we start seeing enough of those doses soon, so that we don’t have to stick to rigid distribution models in the first place.
Addendum: Also note where it happened – in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in Seattle. It was there that anarchists took several city blocks in June and created the CHAZ – Capitol Autonomous Zone. Imagine if the city still tolerated this when it happened. Innovation and creativity require public order and stability, as well as space to make quick decisions without draconian penalties.