Freezer Malfunction Prompts Race to Administer Vaccines

• After a freezer malfunctioned in Seattle, healthcare workers had to rush the administration of COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna before they expired.
• The remaining 1,600 doses were split between two health centers and hundreds volunteered to help out.
• Healthcare workers and volunteers had to administer doses until past 3 a.m. to make sure no dose went to waste.

Healthcare workers in Seattle had to rush the administration of COVID-19 vaccines from Moderna when a freezer malfunctioned and risked the doses’ expiration.

A report from The Seattle Times stated that a freezer at Kaiser Permanente Washington malfunctioned at around 9 p.m. Thursday night. It had still contained about 1,600 first doses of the vaccine.

To make sure no dose expired before being administered, every dose had to be given by 5:30 a.m. on Friday. Hundreds of healthcare workers and volunteers rushed to help out.

Jenny Brackett, an assistant administrator at the University of Washington Medical Center, told The Times, “I received a call this evening at 9 o’clock and learned a Kaiser freezer went down and could we help vaccinate people before the doses expired at 5:30 in the morning?”

The doses were split between Swedish Medical Center and UW Medical Center. Both centers reached out to local news stations and posted on social media platforms to get the message out.

Thankfully, all slots for vaccination were filled in less than two hours.

Local NBC affiliate King 5 News reported that the appointments at Swedish Medical Center were filled within 35 to 40 minutes.

The center’s COO, Kevin Brooks, told the news station, “We got a call from a partner hospital that they had a fridge malfunction and they needed to vaccinate 880 people. I pulled our team together, our vaccine team at Swedish, and we huddled on Microsoft Teams and came up with a plan, and 30 minutes later we came on site.”

According to healthcare officials, they did their best to prioritize as many essential workers and seniors, while making sure that no doses went to waste.

Brooks told King 5 News, “We’re doing the best we can to stay within the CDC and the governor’s guidelines on prioritization. At the same time, we want to make sure not a single drop of the vaccine goes wasted.”

One senior, 77-year-old Tyson Greer, had been searching for an open vaccination slot during the early hours of the morning for over a week. She was finally able to get her first dose at UW Medical Center after spotting the message.

The cause of the freezer malfunction is still unknown. Thanks to the efforts of healthcare workers and volunteers who administered doses until past 3 a.m., all the remaining doses were administered before they expired.

Source: People