Seattle hospitals distributed Covid-19 vaccines to hundreds of people in the middle of the night after a freezer in which they were stored failed.
It is unclear what exactly caused the freezer to fail on Thursday night, but Northwest and Montlake campuses at UW Medical Center and Swedish Medical Center received more than 1,300 doses of vaccine that needed to be used before expiring at 5:30 am Friday fair, the Seattle Times reported.
Word of the unexpected doses spread on social media, and a line of hopeful vaccine recipients left through the clinic’s door and through a parking lot at UW Medical Center-Northwest.
At the Swedish Medical Center, a hundred people lined up. The hospital tweeted at 11:59 pm that it had 588 doses to distribute and, at 12:30 pm, all service hours had been filled.
At UW Medical Center-Northwest, assistant administrator Jenny Brackett walked through the crowd calling and asking if anyone was over 65. Brackett said the hospital was doing its best to vaccinate eligible people, but that the main objective was to put it into practice and avoid waste. But many of those who attended were too young and healthy to qualify in Washington’s current priority categories for vaccine distribution.
A woman drawn from the crowd at UW Medical Center-Northwest, Tyson Greer, 77, said she woke up at 1 am or 3 am more than a week ago to research the coveted vaccination appointments online. She finally received an injection at 1 am Friday morning.
Many of the staff working at the vaccination clinic have been working since 7 am on Thursday, said Keri Nasenbeny, associate head of nursing.
When she received the news about the freezer failure, she called several nurses, who in turn recruited pharmacists and other volunteers. A Seattle firefighter came out of nowhere to help, and a hospital employee’s boyfriend helped manage the line.
Those who received the vaccine were grateful. Sarah Leyden, 57, learned that injections were available from his wife, a hairdresser, who heard from a client who is a nurse. “I was lucky,” said Leyden.
Anyone who received the first injection on Thursday night will also receive the second injection on a two-dose regimen, regardless of age, said Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association.