A pharmacist from the small town of Grafton in Wisconsin has been arrested and charged with deliberately destroying hundreds of doses of COVID-19 vaccine by taking it out of the refrigerator for two nights.
The Modern COVID vaccine must be stored in freezers and is viable up to 12 hours after removal. On Christmas Eve, the unnamed pharmacist removed 57 vials of the vaccine containing more than 500 doses and put them back the next morning. He left the bottles out on the night of December 25th. The next morning they were found by another staff.
Police have so far had no motive for the vandalism.
Associated Press:
Bahr said health care officials became more suspicious of the pharmacist as they reviewed the incident. After multiple interviews, the pharmacist admitted Wednesday that he intentionally removed the vaccine during the two nights, Bahr said.
That means the doses people receive on Saturday are almost useless, he said. Moderna informed Aurora that there are no safety issues, but the hospital is closely monitoring the people who received the spoiled doses.
According to the Washington Examiner, the authorities at Advocate Aurora Medical Center tried to make the most of the situation by administering doses quickly until the vaccine spoiled.
As the investigation unfolded and the medical center better understood the situation, they quickly tried to administer some of the vaccines, as they are useful until thawed and cannot be frozen. Hundreds of doses were discarded, but some were administered, although Aurora health officials raised doubts about the effectiveness of the doses because they were taken twice from their refrigerated unit.
Jeff Bahr, president of Aurora Health Care Medical Group, called the individual a “bad actor.”
Vandalism draws attention to the development of an epic group of a rollout of vaccines. Governors in both red and blue states were angry with Washington for not sending the doses of vaccine they were promised – sometimes hundreds of thousands less.
CBS:
More than ten states have been informed that the number of doses of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine they expected to receive next week were cut, with little information as to why. Government officials in Wyoming, Minnesota, Washington, California, Idaho, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, Oregon, Connecticut and Kentucky said they were notified of the reduction.
While some states do not specify the size of the reduction, officials in Washington and Oregon said their states will receive 40% fewer doses than expected. California is receiving 160,000 doses less than expected. For Michigan, that’s nearly 25,000.
The Trump administration points out that there is a misunderstanding between the federations and the states. According to the number of doses, they were called ‘planning numbers’.
‘Potential planning numbers have been provided in previous months with the understanding that this is exactly what it is: potential. “The countries were told that they would receive the final award before the official award numbers a week in advance, depending on the amount of doses available from the manufacturers,” the official said.
I mention bull crap on it. In fact, official announcements about the distribution of vaccines said nothing about ‘planning numbers’. The medicine was too optimistic about how many vaccine doses would be available, or it is possible that the companies themselves could not estimate properly. Either way, by all accounts, the process is not going as smoothly as promised.