-
The Washington Post reported that a freezing accident had a furious attempt to administer more than 1,600 vaccines overnight in Seattle.
-
Hundreds of people stood in their clothes and pajamas in the street after the Swedish health services of Seattle tweeted at 11pm that it contained vaccines that would expire within hours.
-
Workers administered all the shots on time, and no doses went to waste.
-
Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
Staff and volunteers at a Seattle health facility injected 1,600 people with coronavirus vaccines that expired quickly after a freezer failed, reports The Washington Post.
The freezer function meant that Moderna’s vaccines would expire by the morning of January 29, and Swedish health care workers in Seattle rushed them to vaccinate as many people as they could. Within the last 15 minutes, before the shots expired, workers fired dozens of shots mostly on the street. They apparently injected the last shot at the point at 03:45.
Thursday night around 23:00 the medical center tweeted an urgent message saying that it had hundreds of available vaccine appointments in the next few hours before the doses. The NBC subsidiary KING-TV turned up hundreds of people in their pajamas and clothes.
The posts called on people who knew them to get them off to get a chance, the Post added.
“We were literally like … who can get people here? People started texting and calling and we were just counting down, “Kevin Brooks, chief operating officer of the Swedish Health Services, told the Post. Thirty-seven. Thirty-five. Thirty-three … People showed up and ran down the hall. ‘
Brooks told KING-TV that all available appointments were filled within 35 to 40 minutes.
The vaccinations stored at Kaiser Permanente began to thaw after a cold that affected the Swedes’ vaccines and those belonging to UW Medicine.
Jenny Brackett, an assistant administrator at UW Medicine, said when she learned of the freezer accident, she was inspired by another recent case where vaccines nearly went to waste. Earlier this week, after being caught in a blizzard, health workers in Oregon vaccinated stranded drivers before their remaining doses of the coronavirus vaccine expired.
While the vaccines had to go to other people, “the snow meant the doses would not make it until it expired,” the public health department in Josephine County, Oregon, said.
Brackett told the Post: “When I called, it’s like, ‘It’s like our snow moment. ‘
Read more: Coronavirus variants threaten to increase the progress of the pandemic. Here’s how 4 top vaccine fighters fight back.
Brackett said she went through the long queue to find people 65 or older so they could be prioritized.
“I was a little worried that the line would not be too excited,” she said. “You know I let others go first. But that was not at all the reaction I had. In fact, the crowd cheered.“
Although not everyone who was vaccinated was in the state’s highest priority category, the center said they would still be eligible to receive their second dose, and they’re just glad nothing was wasted.
Read the original article on Business Insider