State does not keep track of ‘wasted’ COVID-19 doses

With an unpredictable supply of vaccines heading to Washington State, every single dose delivered is counted by the Department of Health as a potential precious lifesaver.

But once those doses are delivered to providers, the state does not keep track of how many doses are wasted.

Healthcare providers who asked to be anonymous told KIRO-7 some doses have been wasted because of broken vials, improper mixing, or when doses lapsed the six-hour time limit after they were prepared, because there weren’t enough people meeting the 1A requirements around to receive those doses.

In an email to KIRO-7, Department of Health spokesperson Danielle Koenig wrote, “The state does not systematically capture wasted dose information. If a provider has additional vaccine they have already prepared or if a vaccine went out of temperature range, they call the manufacturer, not the state, to find out if the vaccine is still viable or not. We do encourage all providers to use up all vaccine they receive.”

But the Washington Department of Health does require providers to report all losses of childhood vaccines, to tracks details of any doses being spoiled or wasted for any reason.

Several states like Oregon require wasted doses to be reported into statewide tracking systems.

“I have heard of a few doses being wasted,” said Cassie Sauer with the Washington State Department of Hospitals, who added no provider ever wants to lose a single dose--and she says the cases reported to her have been rare.

“Somebody’s going to drop a vial,” she said. “It’s going to happen. I’m feeling frustrated at the sense that this should go perfectly every minute, at a hospital system administering a thousand doses a day or two thousand doses a day, it’s just not possible.”

But she says no vaccine dose should ever be wasted when a provider has extra doses, and not enough people with vouchers to receive them.

“If you have a choice between vaccinating anyone--like any human you can find, or throwing it away, we want to vaccinate any human you can find, the state says vaccinate any human you can find.”

Ideally, state guidelines indicate any extra doses to go to 1A workers who are unaffiliated with a hospital, or someone over 70 years old, Sauer said.

“But if you can’t find someone who’s over 70 and you can find someone who’s 30 and healthy and your dose expires in 10 minutes, and they’re standing in front of you ready to get the vaccine,  you’ve got one left, give it to them.”

Cox Media Group