Whether Springfield Hospital will have to throw away 860 doses of the Moderna vaccine is a question the state is trying to answer. State officials are in talks with the vaccine’s manufacturer to decide what to do about doses that may — or may not — have been stored at slightly too high a temperature.
State officials expected to have an answer Wednesday evening.
“The Health Department is continuing to review a situation involving several hundred doses of vaccine distributed to Springfield Hospital, including whether the doses are or are not viable,” said Ben Truman, public health communication officer, in a written statement late Wednesday afternoon.
At that point, no determination had been made. “We’re still seeking final guidance from the manufacturer on the potential loss of doses due to a temperature excursion,” said Truman.
According to Centers for Disease Control guidelines, the Moderna vaccine must be stored at a temperature ranging between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius. The state of Vermont’s monitor indicated that the storage temperature at Springfield Hospital was 9.1 degrees Celsius.
As of Wednesday afternoon, the hospital had yet to throw out the 860 doses, and spokesperson Anna Smith said the hospital is still waiting to hear from the state about what to do next.
“They have not been put in the trash can yet,” she said. “We’re waiting to hear feedback from the state. I don’t know what that determination is. It happened so quickly.”
While CDC guidelines establish a range of 2 to 8 degrees Celsius for vaccine storage, Anna Smith said that, in the guidance the hospital had received, an additional degree of fluctuation was also acceptable. “It can go up to 9, and once it goes over 9, it’s out of range,” she said.
Truman confirmed that none of the doses in question have been administered, either. “We will not administer vaccine from any doses we are not 100% confident can be used,” he said.
Of the 860 doses, 400 would have been second doses for patients. So far, the hospital has administered 375 doses, including both Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. The hospital currently has 777 people scheduled for their second dose, and 220 who are scheduled to get their first of the two doses.
Up to this point, Vermont hadn’t had much trouble with vaccine spoilage. According to health commissioner Mark Levine, last week that number was fewer than 30 in total.
Levine said the potential loss of the Springfield dose was a “very small percentage when you’re talking about 50,000 or 60,000 doses. Even now with an additional 800, that’s still not a high percentage.”
“Not to make any excuses for anybody, but the reality is, in any kind of large vaccination program, these things happen,” he said. “We’re going to make sure that we know exactly the details behind this circumstance and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
Springfield Hospital canceled its vaccination clinic scheduled for Wednesday morning, when 240 people were scheduled to receive the vaccination.
“Any future clinics are on hold until future notice,” said Anna Smith.
According to officials at the Department of Health, this will not affect the vaccination schedule for Vermonters age 75 or older or the availability of second doses in the state.
Which sensors are right?
While Levine said the sensitive, “exquisite” temperature sensors did their job to alert health workers to a storage problem, Anna Smith said that, in this case, the sensors might be a part of the problem.
According to Smith, the hospital’s monitors had a different temperature reading than the state’s monitor. She said both of Springfield’s monitors registered temperatures within the acceptable range, but the state monitor detected the 9.1 degree Celsius reading last night, raising questions about a possible calibration issue.
“Our two monitors indicated it was within range, but the state monitor indicated it was above the range,” Smith said. She did not know the exact temperature that the hospital monitors had recorded.
“This happened late yesterday … so we called the state and discussed it with them. They wanted to discuss it with Moderna,” Smith said.
State officials said they were still in the process of speaking with Moderna to determine what should happen with the doses.
“We very much appreciate the proactive efforts by Springfield Hospital in alerting the state of the situation and in its cooperation with our teams to address it,” Truman said.
A team from the Department of Health “will come down and check the calibration of the monitors against their monitors to try to figure out why there’s a discrepancy,” Anna Smith said.
“In the meantime, we had to put patient safety first,” she said. “We’re taking every precaution, and every step to investigate it, and we’ll figure out whatever there is to figure out.”
