BOSTON (AP) – Nearly 2,000 doses of a COVID-19 vaccine were spoiled at a Boston Veterans Affairs hospital after a contractor accidentally disconnected a freezer, hospital officials announced Thursday.
Jamaica Plain VA Medical Center staff discovered on Tuesday that a freezer broke, compromising 1,900 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine.
The freezer’s plug was found to be loose after a contractor accidentally unplugged it while cleaning, according to a statement by Kyle Toto, a VA Boston Healthcare System spokesperson. The freezer had been in a secure location and had an alarm system, he said.
The system investigates the cause of the incident and why the surveillance alarm system was not working. More doses are on the way, Toto said, and officials “foresee no disruption” to the vaccination effort of the system.
Temperature issues have caused problems with vaccine rollout in other states.
Nearly 12,000 Moderna doses shipped to Michigan on Sunday were spoiled after getting too cold. In Wisconsin, a pharmacist is charged after authorities say he intentionally messed up hundreds of doses by taking them out of the fridge for two nights.
The Moderna vaccine should be stored at normal freezing temperatures, but not the ultra-cold required for Pfizer-BioNTech uptake.
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VIRUS BY THE FIGURES
The number of newly confirmed deaths from the coronavirus rose by 80 on Friday, while the number of newly confirmed cases of COVID-19 increased by more than 4,900.
The new deaths have pushed the state’s confirmed COVID-19 death toll to 13,702 and the confirmed caseload since the start of the pandemic to nearly 468,000.
The actual number of cases is probably higher because studies suggest that some people may be infected and not feel sick.
There were more than 2,000 people hospitalized on Friday for confirmed cases of COVID-19, with about 420 in intensive care units.
The mean age of those admitted to hospital was 71. There were currently more than 89,000 estimated active cases of COVID-19 in the state.
The number of likely or confirmed COVID-19 deaths reported in long-term care settings rose to 7,857.