Rona wasted vaccine.... are plans in place?

Two stories. One in California where a hospital's refrigerator unit went on the fritz. Doses were about to go to waste. Hospital administrators drove the stuff to the county prison and a couple of assisted living centers. 

Second story. Guy was in a Giant" supermarket near the pharmacy. It was near closing time. A pharmacist went up to the guy and told him that the store was closing in 10 minutes and a dose was going out of code and was going to be discarded. Did he want it? He did.

You can see where this is leading. There are several Essex County sites giving the vaccine by appointment. Are there plans for the end of the day when some people don't keep their appointments? What about when distribution goes beyond the county sites?

An acquaintance got her first shot last week at a Newark event late in the day and was told by staff there that only 250 of 1,000 scheduled appointments had shown up. Anecdotal, but still worrisome. Even if the numbers are off in the hundreds, that’s still a lot of waste. 

Heynj said:

An acquaintance got her first shot last week at a Newark event late in the day and was told by staff there that only 250 of 1,000 scheduled appointments had shown up. Anecdotal, but still worrisome. Even if the numbers are off in the hundreds, that’s still a lot of waste. 

I heard a similar story last week from a friend that volunteered.  Only 50% of the people scheduled for appointments showed up.

My husband got his through his work, but many of his co-workers are putting it off because they’re nervous and want to find out what happens to the people who get it before they get it themselves.  Absolute stupidity, considering the sheer number of patients and even deaths that they’re seeing.  

I understand waiting for 1a to be done before moving onto 1b, but it’s also frustrating to hear things like my husband’s coworkers putting it off or the above about people scheduled but not showing up, when there are people in 1b and 1c who would happily show up today if allowed.

I'm torn. If there are unused doses of vaccine that are imminently expiring they should find some way to get them into people's arms. How to do it without causing a huge rush and dangerous crowd conditions.

Maybe the state/county should hire someone like Ticketmaster to do a lottery system like they do with concert tickets. All doses that are 24 hours to expiration go into a pool that's distributed to the lottery winners. People have to sign up and commit to being able to get their shot with 24 hours notice. If they miss their appointment they can't enter the lottery again and have to wait their regular turn.

I'm 100% behind taking unused doses to prisons. They are Hotspots for infection clusters and they're not isolated. Corrections workers, prison medical personnel and chaplains and visitors are placed at risk.  

Yesterday Murphy said that 101,417 people had received their first shot in the first three weeks that the vaccine had been available in NJ. Nj received  400,000 doses in December. Of that, 120,000 had been reserved for long-term health facilities and 280,000 had been allocated to hospitals and community sites for front-line health care workers. It seems that NJ is experiencing the same problems as a lot of states in getting the doses that it receives into people's arms. 

“Some of it is reporting,” Persichilli said during the state’s latest coronavirus briefing in Trenton, noting the gap between available vaccines and the number that have been administered. “Getting into the system has proven to logistically part of the problem.”

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2021/01/nj-hits-100k-coronavirus-vaccinations-administered-next-group-of-signups-still-weeks-away.html

yahooyahoo said:

Heynj said:

An acquaintance got her first shot last week at a Newark event late in the day and was told by staff there that only 250 of 1,000 scheduled appointments had shown up. Anecdotal, but still worrisome. Even if the numbers are off in the hundreds, that’s still a lot of waste. 

I heard a similar story last week from a friend that volunteered.  Only 50% of the people scheduled for appointments showed up.

This is simply not true.  Each site has scheduled 250 appointments per day.  There is no situation where 750 people did not show up at a site.

Maybe they were counting all 4 Essex County sites?

Yes.

On NPR this morning, they reported that some states/localities have assembled lists of people who signed up as willing to get the shot on 30 minutes' notice.  Apparently Signup Genius and Survey Monkey were used by some.  Seems like someone was thinking ahead!  Absent that kind of list, offering the vaccine to whoever, while working toward something more systematic, is fine with me.

The question is why the Essex Co. locations weren't receiving more than 250 doses for each location, when the state had what appears to be 300,000 doses distributed to it that weren't being administered. 

eta - It's been reported that in other states doses are not being used because some hospital staff and long-term care staff are refusing to get the vaccine. I don't know if that's the case in NJ. 

cramer said:

The question is why the Essex Co. locations weren't receiving more than 250 doses for each location, when the state had what appears to be 300,000 doses distributed to it that weren't being administered. 

 Social distancing and also recipients need to stay afterwards for 30 minutes for observation.  This limits the number of people they can have there at any one time.

spontaneous said:

cramer said:

The question is why the Essex Co. locations weren't receiving more than 250 doses for each location, when the state had what appears to be 300,000 doses distributed to it that weren't being administered. 

 Social distancing and also recipients need to stay afterwards for 30 minutes for observation.  This limits the number of people they can have there at any one time.

 @michaelgoldberg posted in the other thread that on the day that he volunteered at Livingston Mall they had to close early because they ran out of vaccine.

I was only replying to your question of why they weren’t getting more than 250 doses a day.  If they’re there for 8 hours that’s slightly more than 31 people an hour.  31 per hour doesn’t sound like a lot, but with social distancing and people needed to stay on site, but separate, for 30 minutes 30 people an hour is a lot.

Did they not receive enough vaccines, did they over schedule, who knows.  I’m just talking about the difficulty of vaccinating a large number of people under the current circumstances.

I'm 79. I agree with Dr. Gottlieb. 

Here is a NJ Department of Health site that allows you to pre-register for a COVID-19 vaccination. You will not get a date right away, but you will be in the system and the confirmation letter you receive will let you know which phase you are in:
https://covid19.nj.gov/pages/vaccine?fbclid=IwAR12FuasQxNFp7uafp2JWs9pv9WbE2UOUS85btn0AS5U70QV4TXvtYY4WYI

sbenois said:

yahooyahoo said:

Heynj said:

An acquaintance got her first shot last week at a Newark event late in the day and was told by staff there that only 250 of 1,000 scheduled appointments had shown up. Anecdotal, but still worrisome. Even if the numbers are off in the hundreds, that’s still a lot of waste. 

I heard a similar story last week from a friend that volunteered.  Only 50% of the people scheduled for appointments showed up.

This is simply not true.  Each site has scheduled 250 appointments per day.  There is no situation where 750 people did not show up at a site.

I can't speak for Heynj numbers, but my numbers were based on the total of 250 appointments per day at a single location.  1/2 of the people that were scheduled at one specific location did not show.  Considering this is Group 1a, which is mostly healthcare workers, it's mind-boggling.

cramer said:

 @michaelgoldberg posted in the other thread that on the day that he volunteered at Livingston Mall they had to close early because they ran out of vaccine.

 To clarify, the site closed early because the last appointment was at 2pm.  I am not aware of them running out of vaccine. 
Multiple people showed up with multiple appointments, which led to the shortage of people, not shortage of vaccine.  

michaelgoldberg said:

cramer said:

 @michaelgoldberg posted in the other thread that on the day that he volunteered at Livingston Mall they had to close early because they ran out of vaccine.

 To clarify, the site closed early because the last appointment was at 2pm.  I am not aware of them running out of vaccine. 
Multiple people showed up with multiple appointments, which led to the shortage of people, not shortage of vaccine.  

 Thank you for the clarification (I should have re-read your post in the other thread.)  What do you mean by "multiple appointments?"  Does person A make three apointments, and they set aside three doses for A (and the same thing for several people who make multiple appointments,)  and therefore have extra doses when they close up early?

At Livingston, they scheduled 250 appointments, but say only 200 people showed up. Is that it? 

Thank you for volunteering. 

eta - Also, were there people who made appointments and didn't show up?

I was there yesterday.   Vrtually everyone with appointments showed up.    They are being extremely careful with the doses to ensure that there is little if any waste at all.   Most of the stuff being written here is simply incorrect.

Thank you for volunteering.  Could you have handled more than the scheduled 250 if there was more vaccine, or logisitcally is 250 the limit?

How many people/nurses are giving the injections at the Sears site?  From what I've heard, they move a lot faster than the Jersey Shore place I went to, which had 4 people giving shots (it was drive through, never got out of car).  

give a dose out of turn can run into further problems with the 2nd dose because the people aren't authorized for it....a delayed dose may work, but we don't know.  so now they need to follow through with the 2nd dose, otherwise the 1st is still wasted.

i agree with a full fridge full being repurposed.  but an individual pharmacist should not just be grabbing the nearest customer to save 1 dose.

how far ahead of time are these taken out of cold storage?  i doubt they are taking 1000 out in the morning for the entire day.

sbenois said:

I was there yesterday.   Vrtually everyone with appointments showed up.    They are being extremely careful with the doses to ensure that there is little if any waste at all.   Most of the stuff being written here is simply incorrect.

 

Could have easily doubled or tripled the volume.   

bub said:

How many people/nurses are giving the injections at the Sears site?  From what I've heard, they move a lot faster than the Jersey Shore place I went to, which had 4 people giving shots (it was drive through, never got out of car).  

 ~20

sbenois said:

sbenois said:

I was there yesterday.   Vrtually everyone with appointments showed up.    They are being extremely careful with the doses to ensure that there is little if any waste at all.   Most of the stuff being written here is simply incorrect.

 

Could have easily doubled or tripled the volume.   

 Thank you. 

Yes, Gov. Murphy, but NJ received 400,000 doses. Shouldn't seniors get at least one dose? 

cramer said:

michaelgoldberg said:

cramer said:

 @michaelgoldberg posted in the other thread that on the day that he volunteered at Livingston Mall they had to close early because they ran out of vaccine.

 To clarify, the site closed early because the last appointment was at 2pm.  I am not aware of them running out of vaccine. 
Multiple people showed up with multiple appointments, which led to the shortage of people, not shortage of vaccine.  

 Thank you for the clarification (I should have re-read your post in the other thread.)  What do you mean by "multiple appointments?"  Does person A make three apointments, and they set aside three doses for A (and the same thing for several people who make multiple appointments,)  and therefore have extra doses when they close up early?

At Livingston, they scheduled 250 appointments, but say only 200 people showed up. Is that it? 

Thank you for volunteering. 

eta - Also, were there people who made appointments and didn't show up?

 There were some issues with the website that put people in a loop and they made multiple appointments. I assume that filled the calendar prematurely. The day I was there only about 150 people showed up.  I’m guessing that was a result of a mix of people who didn’t show up and people who had multiple appointments. 

Hopefully they fixed it by now. 

When I was there they had capacity to handle 3-4 times the number of people, but were constrained by the amount of vaccine.  I have heard they are planning for 1000 people per day per site (up from 250 per day per site currently)

With 800,000 people in the County, if we want to vaccinate 75% in 6 months, that would be be about 200,000 shots per month.  Working 6 days per week at 4 sites, requires about 2000 shots per day per site.  

Correct Michael.

Cramer...check your private messages

Once again, thank you Michael and Sbenois and anybody else who is volunteering.