SEATTLE (AP) – Seattle hospitals rushed COVID-19 vaccines to hundreds of people in the middle of the night after a freezer in which they were stored failed.
It is not clear what caused the freezer on Thursday night, but the UW Medical Center’s Northwest and Montlake campuses and the Swedish Medical Center received more than 1,300 doses that had to be used before it expired at 05:30 on Friday, reports The Seattle Times..
The message about the unexpected doses spread on social media, and a series of hopeful vaccine recipients snuck out the clinic door and through a parking lot at the UW Medical Center Northwest. One hundred people lined up in the clinic of the Swedish Medical Center at Seattle University. The hospital tweeted at 23:59 that it had 588 doses to give out, and by 12:30 all the appointments had been made.
At UW Medical Center, Northwest, Jenny Brackett, assistant administrator, walked around with the crowd and asked if anyone was older than 65. Many of those who showed up were too young and healthy to qualify under the current priority categories of the state of Washington for vaccine distribution. Brackett said the hospital is doing its best to vaccinate those who are eligible, but that the main goal was to get it into the weapon and avoid wastage.
Anyone who received a first shot on Thursday night will also receive the second shot in the two-dose scheme, regardless of age, said Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association.
One woman picked from the crowd at UW Medical Center-Northwest, Tyson Greer, 77, said she had been waking up for more than a week at 1 a.m. or 3 p.m. to search for sought-after vaccinations online. . She finally got a chance at 01:00 on Friday from Keri Nasenbeny, chief nurse.
Many of the staff members who work at the vaccination clinic were at work Thursday at 7 p.m., Nasenbeny said.
When she heard about the freezer, she called several nurses who in turn recruited pharmacists and other volunteers. It looks like a firefighter in Seattle showed up out of nowhere to help, and a hospital staff’s boyfriend helped drive the queue.
Those who received the vaccine were appreciative. Sarah Leyden, 57, received reports that her wife, a hairdresser, had heard from a nurse client.
“I was just lucky,” Leyden said.