MIDLOTHIAN, Virginia. – Kroger, until Thursday night, has not yet explained why several people were mistakenly injected with an empty syringe instead of a COVID-19 vaccine at a Central Virginia clinic.
Several people entered the Midlothian Kroger on Monday and Tuesday hoping to be vaccinated with the Johnson & Johnson Coronavirus vaccine.
Instead, they were injected with an empty syringe.
A Kroger spokesman said less than 10 people were affected.
One, a man who spoke anonymously to CBS 6, said that a Kroger employee initially told him that he had accidentally taken a saline injection.
“I kind of assumed that the person had taken the wrong bottle out of the fridge, and I remember that when I was in the room there seemed to be a series of hypodermic needles that I assumed were full,” he said.
Kroger later clarified that it was not saline, but an empty needle, and that they initially received incorrect information.
“We will have a post of nurses who take vaccines out of the vials,” said Cat Long, spokesman for the Richmond-Henrico health districts, as he explained the vaccination process at mass vaccination clinics. “So, after filling the syringes, they give these vaccines to the nurses who are actually vaccinating people.”
She said Richmond and Henrico had no problem injecting people with empty syringes, but they understood how it could happen.
“The shot is clear, so it can be a little difficult to count, I suppose, but we had no problem keeping them apart,” said Long.
Kelly Goode, a pharmacist and professor at the VCU medical school, agreed.
“It can be a little difficult at times to tell if there is liquid there,” said Goode.
To avoid mistaking empty syringes for filled syringes, she said pharmacists need an on-site procedure.
“After filling it, it goes somewhere else so that you don’t mix unfilled syringes with filled syringes,” explained Goode. “And then you shouldn’t have empty syringes on your counter and then have full syringes on the same counter, because that’s how mistakes can occur.”
Goode said pharmacists also need different training to administer the three vaccines, and vaccinators should have been retrained when the Johnson & Johnson dose, which was used at Kroger, became available.
“You would have to learn how it is prepared differently in some of the nuances for the storage of this vaccine, which is slightly different from the Pfizer and Moderna vaccine,” said Goode.
Goode also explained that there was no evidence that injecting an empty injection into a deltoid muscle, which is where the COVID-19 vaccines go, would cause some damage because the muscle would absorb air.
In the meantime, Long emphasized that people should trust the vaccination process because problems do not come up often. When that happens, Long said that the CDC and the people affected are notified immediately.
“Although these situations are very serious, they are very rare,” said Long. “We administer thousands of injections a day and have had few incidents.”
The Virginia Department of Health said Kroger is taking steps to ensure that this error does not happen again.