JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Florida health officials have administered more than 2 million COVID-19 vaccine doses since December, but along the way, they have also wasted thousands of doses of the coronavirus vaccine.
On Friday, the Florida Department of Health said 3,344 doses meant for health care workers and those age 65 and older were reported as wasted. That’s less than 1% of the vaccine doses administered so far.
“This number includes any vials that were broken, either in transit or during administration, and any vials that were thawed and unable to be administered within the recommended time for use,” wrote the Florida Department of Health’s Office of Communications.
That means more than 99% of doses have been administered to date without any issue, spoilage or waste.
The Florida Department of Health says it encourages health care providers and those administering the vaccinations to make every effort to ensure no doses are wasted or discarded.
Seminole County’s emergency manager told Fox 35 Orlando on Jan. 13 that his office began to ask shoppers if they wanted the vaccine at the county’s Oviedo Mall site because seven doses were set to expire in a couple of hours.
Since then, his office has started sending any few remaining doses to assisted living facilities, nursing homes and to people who are homebound.
At state-supported sites, state health officials say that if a vaccine dose is set to expire that day and has gone unused, the state will immediately relocate the doses to support additional state operations, including taking the doses to long-term care facilities or sending them to another vaccination site in the area.
The Florida Department of Health in Duval County was not able to immediately provide the number of vaccine doses reported as wasted to state health officials.