COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
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COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
1–10 of 23 posts
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#2Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad.
11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#3Not that we (western hemisphere) are not wasting other things that rest of the planet's inhabitants can benefit from.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#4There would be a lot less wastage if people wouldn't be bullied into vaccinating and thus delay the vaccination to the last possible moment where they cannot live without the covid certificate anymore.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#5Worth noting that the big pharmacies do not, from casual eyeball, appear to be wasting out of proportion to the amount they administered. (The U.S. allocated more than half of all doses to the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program and big pharmacies are supermajority of that.)
Disclaimer: comment in personal capacity.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#6Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad. 11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
Twice over
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#7Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad. 11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
But do remember, I’m sure New Zealand would also end up wasting a decent number of doses in the process of vaccinating their population.
Making things convenient often requires using resources less efficiently, and we can’t get everyone vaccinated unless getting vaccinated is convenient.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#8Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad. 11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
It's such a shame, too. You can likely re-freeze the spikevax vials with partial shots to be used at a later date, but that's too uncontrolled to add to the EUA/BLA label. Comirnaty is (was) in phosphate buffer and saline, which you really cannot re-freeze. They did just request a formulation change to the same composition as spikevax (or at least very similar), which should also get rid of the saline dilution step making it overall much easier to administer.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#9Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad. 11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
Not sure about that. When the mass vaccination phase will end, sure, but now, with adequate planning, we can still make good use of these multi-dose vials. 3% waste is bad but not that bad.
I remember in the beginning of the vaccination campaign that the vials themselves were in short order. It is probably all sorted out but making 10 times more will create additional logistics and production challenges. Is it worth it in order to save less than 3% of the substance?
And there are solutions to the wasted doses. Basically, plan the vaccinations ahead to have the required number of people and setup a waiting list so that if someone doesn't show up, call someone else. Where I got vaccinated, I asked them the question about the potentially wasted extra doses, and they proudly told me that using that method they didn't waste a single dose out of the 10000+ they administered.
EDIT: As for the New-Zealand reference, we can also say that we could have vaccinated 0.5% if India with all these doses, which sounds much less impressive. It is all a matter of proportion. I also think that in the case of New-Zealand, right now, being a remote island is more of a problem than the availability of doses, thankfully, it is also helps them keeping covid at bay.
Re: COVID-19 vaccine wastage data from the CDC
#10Yup. Manufacturers will need to move to single dose vials pretty soon. I was talking to pharmacists that reconstitute a 10 dose vial to vaccinate someone and have to toss the other 9 doses as they go bad. 11M wasted doses is frightening. That would vaccinate the entire population of New Zealand.
11M is a big number. 3% isn't, that's actually pretty good; there's a tradeoff between vaccinating slower and not wasting doses.