Reports Of COVID Vaccine 'Spoilage' Grow

Accidentally Trashed, Thawed Or Expired: Reports Of COVID Vaccine 'Spoilage' Grow As the pace of vaccination picks up, so do reports of spoiled doses. In Tennessee, close to 5,000 doses have been lost, prompting more oversight from state and federal officials. NPR.org

As the speed of COVID vaccinations picks up, so do the reports of doses going to waste. And it's more than just a handful at the end of the day because of a few appointment cancellations. Health officials are trying to address the problems that lead to waste, but without slowing down the roll out of the lifesaving vaccinations.

The incidents include the 335 discarded doses in Lee County, North Carolina that were damaged in shipping, and recent problems in Tennessee, where nearly 5,000 doses went to waste in the month of February, prompting additional federal oversight.

"I definitely have been losing some sleep over this, for sure," says Beth Ann Wilmore, the nursing director at Mercy Community Healthcare in Franklin, Tennessee. She manages the COVID vaccine inventory at the nonprofit clinic, which started receiving shipments a month ago.

Clinics like Mercy are accustomed to handling vaccines, but none so precious that have such special refrigeration needs.

"I was definitely waking up in the middle of the night wondering how the temperatures were doing, and thinking, 'Ok, I hope it's good, and it's not giving me a flag or anything.'"

In neighboring Murfreesboro, Tennessee, the local school district received a thousand doses for a teacher vaccination event the last weekend of February. But they were put in an unapproved freezer. The temperature sensor on the shipment flashed an error code. As a precaution, they were advised to throw them all away....There are so many opportunities for doses to go bad. In West Palm Beach, Fla., the power on a mobile refrigerator was turned off. In Connecticut, a fridge door didn't close properly, though the doses were salvaged in time, in consultation with Moderna.

Health officials have gone to great lengths to keep from wasting doses, like an impromptu mass vaccination event in Nashville's homeless shelters after winter storms cancelled hundreds of appointments. ...