GREEN BAY, Delete. (WBAY) – Aurora Medical Center officials say an employee is no longer with the company after an investigation revealed the employee acknowledged that they had deliberately left out dozens of vials of Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine overnight at the site in Grafton, Wisconsin.
According to a release sent early Wednesday evening, Advocate Aurora Health officials say an internal review was initiated immediately after learning of the incident earlier this week, and were led to believe it was caused by human error. However, officials now say the person in question admitted on Wednesday that the vaccine was deliberately removed from a pharmacy refrigerator.
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Company officials say they have notified authorities for further investigation, saying they are “more than disappointed that this person’s actions will result in a delay of more than 500 people getting their vaccine.”
Once thawed, the vaccine cannot be refrozen.
In addition, Aurora officials say they continue to believe vaccination is the way out of the pandemic and that the action was a violation of their core values.
An earlier report stated that 50 bottles were left out when an employee took them out of the refrigerator to access other items and couldn’t put them back overnight on Friday.
However, company officials increased that number to 57, resulting in more than 500 doses of the vaccine being discarded.
The employee has not been identified by Aurora officials.
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