As the speed of Covid vaccines increases, so too do the reports of doses go to waste. And it’s more than just a handful at the end of the day because of a few twists off it. Health officials are trying to get waste back without slowing down vaccines.
Incidents range from 335 doses missed in Lee County, North Carolina, damaged in shipping, to nearly 5,000 doses that went to waste in Tennessee in February, spurring over -additional federal view.
“I’ve definitely been losing some sleep over here, for sure,” said Beth Ann Wilmore, nursing director at Mercy Community Healthcare in Franklin, Tennessee. She manages Covid’s vaccination schedule at the nonprofit clinic, which began receiving loads a month ago.
Clinics like Mercy are used to handling vaccines, but none are as expensive as those for Covid, which has special cooling needs.
“I was definitely waking up in the middle of the night wondering how the temperature was doing, and thinking, ‘Okay, I hope it’s good, and it’s not ‘give me a flag or nothing.’ ”
Many community health centers receive the Moderna filters, which are easier to treat than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine but are still expensive. The filters last 30 days after being out of the deep frost, compared to just about five for Pfizer. But once the seal on the vial is broken, there are only six hours to use the pictures.
So far, no trash has occurred at Mercy. But Wilmore has heard horror stories from across the state.
In neighboring Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the local school district received a thousand doses for a teacher vaccination event last weekend of February. But they were put in an unfrozen freezer. The temperature sensor on the passengers shook an error code. Out of caution, they were advised to throw them away.
“It hurts my heart,” said Dr. Lisa Piercey, Tennessee’s health commissioner, who has one of the biggest spikes in the country for reported damage.
She said the loss was painful as the scenes were “priceless” in the midst of this deadly pandemic. But there is one danger that there will be so many places to get vaccinated.
To increase accessibility and equity, there are now more than 700 vaccine sites across Tennessee, with more expected to open as vaccine shipping grows in the coming weeks.
“It definitely raises the level of anxiety when you have more partners – especially partners who are not under your direct control,” she said.
Even Tennessee’s large, urban health departments – which operate independently of the state health department – are getting into trouble.
In Knoxville, a thousand doses were thrown out, apparently a mess for related loads of dry ice. In Memphis, the county’s health director has resigned after being slow to announce that nearly 2,500 doses were allowed to go out several times – related to winter weather as well as poor management in the county pharmacy.
The state has called in staff from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor the spread of vaccines in Shelby County and set up inspections for every local health department in the state.
There are so many chances for doses to go bad. In West Palm Beach, Florida, the power of a portable cooler was turned off. In Connecticut, a fridge door did not close properly, although the doses were saved in time in consultation with Moderna.
Health officials have gone a long way to avoiding waste doses, such as a major vaccination event in Nashville’s homeless shelters after winter storms disrupted hundreds of meetings.
Dr Kelly Moore, deputy director of the Vaccination Action Consortium, said some damage was expected. It is still well under 1% of doses, even in states like Tennessee and Florida that have shown huge losses.
“I would be more concerned if I saw reports of zero doses consumed,” Moore said, as then she would be concerned with a lack of transparency.
“You want to see some rubbish because that means people are paying attention and accidents in the world are happening and they are being dealt with properly,” she said. “You just don’t want to be overlooked.”
It is hoped that the newly approved Johnson & Johnson vaccine will make it easier to avoid misfortunes. In addition to a single dose, it can last in a normal refrigerant for months.
This story was produced in partnership with Nashville Public Radio, NPR and KHN.
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