The California Department of Public Health said on Wednesday that a vaccine issue at the Oakland Coliseum resulted in 6,300 people receiving lower doses of the Pfizer vaccine than recommended.
The department said that despite this discovery, people who received an underdosage did not need to do anything but a second injection.
“Although the recommended dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is 0.3 ml, the CDC has determined that any dosage of 0.15 ml or greater is safe and does not require that the dose be repeated to protect people against COVID-19” , said Ali Bay, a spokesman for the Department of Public Health, wrote in an email. “In this case, some individuals may have received a dose of 0.22 ml, which is well within the range defined by the CDC.”
The doses below the recommended were the result of a syringe that does not remove all the medication. The problem occurred for people who received the vaccine on Sunday, February 28, from 4:30 pm and Monday, March 1, between 8 am and 3 pm
“The dosage difference was corrected by the team on the spot on Monday afternoon, and CDPH implemented additional training and quality assurance steps as a preventive measure,” Bay wrote in his email.
The state is notifying those who received the lowest dose by email or letter in the mail. “In consultation with vaccine experts at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Pfizer, we determined that some individuals who received the vaccine during this time may have received slightly less than the recommended dose,” the letter said.
This news came after two anonymous sources told KTVU last week that thousands of vaccine recipients were underweight and the state said the allegations were false.
At the time, Dr. John Swartzberg, professor of infectious diseases at UC Berkeley, told SFGATE if there were people at the Oakland Coliseum who received a lower dose, “As a doctor and knowing how vaccines work, I am not alarmed by this and I think my patient would be protected, but I want to hear it from people who know more than I do. I would like FDA scientists and Pfizer to advise what we should do, as they will know what we should do. “