An employee at Wisconsin Hospital has been fired and arrested after removing dozens of vials of the coronavirus vaccine from a pharmacy cabinet, deliberately destroying more than 500 doses.
The incident took place over the weekend at Aurora Medical Center in Grafton, north of Milwaukee. Police in Grafton on Thursday announced the arrest of the pharmacist, but the man did not name or identify a motive.
Police said in a statement that they had arrested the former employee on suspicion of recklessly endangering security, disregarding a prescription drug and criminal property damage. Police said the damage he caused was between $ 8,000 and $ 11,000.
Initially, it turned out that the 57 vials of the Moderna vaccine (which should be kept between 36 and 46 degrees Fahrenheit) had been accidentally omitted overnight, hospital officials said. Each bottle contains approximately 10 doses of the vaccine.
But on Wednesday, the Aurora Medical Center announced that the hospital worker in question “admits that they deliberately took the vaccine out of the refrigerator.”
“We still believe that vaccination is our way out of the pandemic. We are more than disappointed,” the hospital said in a statement, adding that the employee had been terminated. “It was a violation of our core values.”
The Moderna vaccine has a 12-hour window once thawed. Most doses of the vaccine left out of the pharmacist’s box had to be discarded, although hospital officials later believed they could save some. After the hospital administered more than 50 doses of administered vaccines, the hospital official said at a press conference on Thursday that the shots were actually thawed twice, making it ineffective. The hospital said everyone who received an ineffective vaccination had been notified and that the individuals were not at risk.
The news about the spoiled vaccine doses in Wisconsin comes as the United States struggles to achieve its vaccination goals. So far, only about 2.8 million people have been vaccinated, less than the 20 million the Trump administration had hoped for by year-end.
The vaccine is not yet widely available, and health workers and nursing home residents prefer the first doses.
On Wednesday, Advocate Aurora Health, the health care system in which Aurora Medical Center is part, said it has so far vaccinated more than 21,000 health workers.
The pharmacist is currently being held at Ozaukee County Jail.