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34 COVID-19 vaccine doses go to waste at Wisconsin Center following miscommunication: Health department

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Posted at 4:46 PM, Mar 02, 2021
and last updated 2021-03-02 18:29:43-05

MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Health Department says 34 doses of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine expired before they could be given to those in need, because more doses were prepared than people who arrived to be vaccinated at the Wisconsin Center on Monday.

This is the first time any vaccine has expired and gone unused by the Milwaukee Health Department, the department said in a statement Tuesday.

The issue arose when medical workers were instructed to only give the Pfizer vaccine to teachers on that day, the health department says. That was compounded when a number of teachers scheduled appointments on Monday without identifying themselves as teachers until arriving at the Wisconsin Center.

As the expiration date closed in, health department workers rushed to locate people eligible for the vaccine who had not received theirs yet. That effort reduced the number of potentially wasted doses from 140 to the 34 that did expire.

The incident is now under review by the Milwaukee Health Department. At this time the department says there is no evidence suggesting intentional or malicious action.

A total of 1,058 doses were administered at the Wisconsin Center on Monday. More than 25,000 doses have been administered by the health department since vaccination efforts began.

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