About the time Governor Newsom attacked Facebook on Monday for lamenting the pace of vaccine distribution across the country, one Northern California hospital injected locals at a furious pace, giving an unintended roadmap for how ‘ a massive vaccination program could work.
On Monday morning at 11:35, senior staff at Adventist Health Ukiah Valley Medical Center in Mendocino County held their first 2021 executive meeting when the hospital pharmacist interrupted: The compressor on a freezer storing 830 doses of Moderna COVID-19 vaccine, has been discontinued. working hours earlier, and the alarm intended to protect against such failure failed.
The doses were quickly thawed.
The Moderna vaccine is sent and stored at frozen temperatures and remains stable for up to 30 days in a normal refrigerator. But once it has reached room temperature, as in the Adventist freezer, it should be used within 12 hours. When the freezer problem was discovered, the bottles had been crawling to hot for some time.
Medical staff estimated that they had two hours to use it before they would no longer be viable.
“This was not how my day was planned,” Adventist spokeswoman Cici Winiger told the executive meeting. “At that point, it was all on the deck, dropping everything.”
At the end of the minutes, the medical team decided that the goal was to inject every dose, regardless of state guidelines. The medical team felt that “the more people we vaccinate, the closer we get to herd immunity,” Winiger said.
Ukiah residents stand up for a COVID-19 vaccine after a freezer that stored it broke.
(Thanks to Cici Winiger)
Winner tried the phone trying to give the shots first to those on the priority lists. One local parental home took 40 doses for staff and the hospital head transported them to the facility himself.
About 200 doses belong to the country and are stored by the hospital. Winiger said the doses had been returned to the country.
Lt. John Bednar, who helps run the provincial jail, said his facility received 97 of the doses around 1 p.m. About a dozen staff members also became ill with the virus.
After only an hour of using the shots, the sheriff’s officials decided to administer it to staff and frontline staff because they did not have enough time to get permission and arrange a safe protocol for prisoners. Four provincial medical staff began firing, Bednar said.
“I was like, ‘Oh, boy, let’s get going,’ Bednar said when the shots first came. “I think it went as well as it could.”
Bednar was one of those who received the initial dose, although he is not yet sure how he feels about it.
“I do not know. It was one of those things where I was a little hesitant at first because it’s a new vaccine,” he said. “But I have an older family and it’s better that I get it than to possibly endanger their safety. ‘
Even when the shots were delivered in jail, a major vehicle accident on one of the highways cut off the hospital about 20 minutes from its sister facility, Winiger said, making it impossible to reach. Ukiah, a city of about 20,000, surrounded by state and national forest, has a population spread through its rural and often difficult area, which creates a challenge to deliver the doses quickly in remote areas.
The staff of the Adventists rather turned to the local community, with about 600 shots left.
First, they sent a text message to show up at every available medical professional in one of four sites to give the vaccines and monitor those who took them.
“We have helped nurses, pharmacists, doctors, even those who are not part of the hospital,” said Judson Howe, president of Adventist Health in Mendocino County. “It was all on deck and a real community effort.”
Afterwards, hospital staff blew out a text to employees to let people know that anyone who shows up can get the chance.
“We just told them ‘Tell everyone you know,'” Winiger said. “We just wanted to make sure none of this went to waste.”
By noon, within 15 minutes of finding out about the freezer, shots had been fired at all four sites. Lines began to form as the word spread and some staff members were chased away for crowd control, which Winiger said was “insane”.
At the yard where Winiger ran, about 30 people were turned away after the doses ran out. On the main premises near the hospital, she estimates that about 120 people left without the shot.
But by the two-hour deadline, each dose had found a patient, Winiger said.
And while a discussion found late-afternoon items that could have gone smoother – better communication, faster stockpiling – other aspects were ‘heroic’, she said. Dozens of medical staff volunteered and the quick decision to split into four clinics kept the crowd in a manageable way.
It may take a while to know the effectiveness of Monday’s mass vaccinations. But the improvised effort, Winiger said, could be a lesson in how the state can administer more vaccines quickly and efficiently.
Hopefully in less stressful circumstances.
“It’s just great to reach one goal and get it done,” Winiger said. ‘I just thought in my head, can you think we had more time to do this? If we do such a massive vaccination later, we’ll be quick. We can do it. “