BROCKTON, Mass. — One dose of the COVID-19 vaccine was thrown away at the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center after the organization first began administering it to health care workers, Boston 25 News has learned.
Sue Joss, the CEO of the health center, said that the Moderna vaccine came in vials filled with 10 doses, which last for six hours after they are thawed before they need to be thrown out. The BNHC schedules 10 people to be vaccinated at a time as to not risk doses spoiling.
However, on the first day that the health center was administering the vaccine to health care workers – which Joss estimated was around Christmas – one dose had to be thrown out. That’s because some people who were slated to get the vaccine that day did not show up, causing the six-hour window to elapse and the dose to spoil.
>>>MORE: New vaccination distribution plan being rolled out in Mass.
The BNHC now has people on-call to be vaccinated in case there are people who do not show up for their scheduled vaccination, lowering the risk that some doses will spoil and need to be discarded.
“It’s something we all have to take very seriously,” Joss said.
“We consider this vaccine liquid gold.”
Currently, over 200 vaccinations have been administered at the Brockton Neighborhood Health Center, which is federally funded.
Editor’s Note: A previous version of this story reported that several vials of the Moderna vaccine were thrown away. The CEO of Brockton Neighborhood Health Center later confirmed that only one vial was thrown away.
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