David MacMillan got lucky with a dose of Covid vaccine from Moderna Inc. late on New Year’s Day. While shopping at Giant Food in Washington, DC, the 31-year-old paralegal passed the in-store pharmacist looking for buyers for two doses after a few health workers missed their appointments. The store would close in 10 minutes and the thawed doses should be discarded.
Two of the store’s employees and another customer had already rejected the shots. Mr. MacMillan and his 25-year-old friend happily volunteered. “I was thrilled,” said Mr. MacMillan, whose post on TikTok about the experience went viral. “It’s like being told you won the lottery.”
Because scarce supplies are slowly rolling to the public, there is sometimes extra vaccine. Vials have a bonus dose or two if vaccine sets have more efficient syringes. Some people miss appointments and their injection must be given away so that the vaccine is not lost. Some vaccination sites are ready to inject new groups of people or want to move vaccine across provincial or state lines to where people are waiting, only to be held up by local authorities. Every now and then a freezer breaks, prompting a race to shoot in the arms.
It’s an extra layer of complexity for vaccination sites as they grapple with the logistics of the largest vaccination campaign in history. The vaccine from Pfizer Inc. is kept below minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit and the Moderna vaccine below 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Once thawed, neither can be kept in the freezer.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday that all people over 65 and anyone with pre-existing conditions should be eligible for the shot, releasing millions of doses it has withheld from second doses for health professionals. The extended eligibility will help vaccination sites find willing customers. At the same time, some locations may not be able to deliver shots as quickly as they would like due to staffing issues amid a winter wave in Covid-19 cases. And some will still face the waste problem at the end of each day.