After a freezer containing costly Moderna COVID-19 vaccines that needed to be refrigerated broke down in a Seattle hospital, medical staff rushed to vaccinate as many people as possible at the clinics of Seattle University and the University of Washington.
It turned out to be one of the wildest vaccine rollouts ever, as medics rushed to use the vaccine on humans before it expired Thursday night and Friday morning, the Seattle Times reported.
“I got a call tonight at 9am and heard that a Kaiser freezer was breaking down and could we help vaccinate people before the 5:30 am doses expire?” Jenny Brackett, an assistant administrator at the University of Washington, told the Seattle Times.
Between the Northwest locations of UW Medical Center and Montlake, they had to administer 800 unexpected doses.
Non-profit health system Swedish tweeted Late Thursday that the 588 Moderna coronavirus vaccine had appointments from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m.
The cause of the freezer failure at Kaiser Permanente was not immediately clear.
“It was late, it was monitored – someone saw it and soon thought to take it to someone who could administer it,” said Cassie Sauer, president of the Washington State Hospital Association.
Sauer said no dose went unused and a total of 1,600 doses were administered at different locations.